The Nine RED Men Incident
by Ownee171
Summary: After the Soldier once again pissed off Merasmus, the Team find themselves separated across a strange land called Gensokyou. Will they be able to make their way out without causing an incident? And will they ever find out what Merasmus was trying to invite them to? Almost certainly not, but let's find out!
1. Chapter 1: An Invitation

"Soldier, what did you do to piss him off this time?" Sniper asked, as he hid behind one of the neon-sign laden walls, the silver bullets in his pocket jangling in an annoying way. He was feeling rather embarrassed that he'd been the only one to dress up so far this Halloween, but that was rapidly being eclipsed by burning rage towards the Soldier.

"Well, he came by my castle yesterday-" the Soldier began.

"You mean his old castle?" Sniper interrupted.

"Yeah, if you want to be all technical about it. He started waving around a piece of paper, and saying some mumbo-jumbo about inviting me to something. So I sent Lieutenant Bites after him."

"You mean that rabid raccoon that always clings to your pants?"

"If you mean rabid for WAR, then yes."

"And you didn't consider, oh, I don't know, LISTENING TO HIM!"

"What, and have him work his insidious magic to force me to do his every command? Are you crazy, Sniper? I'd almost think you were working on his side!"

Sniper cradled his head in one hand. "Wait a minute," he said, "Isn't he a ghost? How would a raccoon affect him at all?"

"Well he wasn't, but that paper sure was. Then he got all mad, and yelled something about 'Swearing vengeance…again,' and disappeared in a puff of that green smoke." Sniper sighed.

Around the corner, the magician was sending giant bombs flying everywhere: at the walls, and the floor, and even that weird barrier of Plexiglas that served as a roof, which the administrator said was to prevent their battles from causing any unnecessary damage. He really, really wished that just one Halloween they'd be able to fight without having some crazy supernatural thing happen. It was starting to get on his nerves, especially because while he was "prepared" for vampires (which had better not actually exist, or his sanity might get stretched even thinner than it already was), he was not, in fact, prepared for mad ghost wizards trying to blow up everything, or the demo's giant eye coming back to blow them all up, or the ghost of their employer's father chopping of all their heads. Really, if for once the supernatural thing that showed up wasn't trying to kill them, he'd be happy. But that would probably never happen with people like the Soldier around.

He peeked out from behind his wall and took a potshot at Merasmus, who was busy peering closely at the Bombinomicon and muttering to himself something about pronunciations.

"Aaaagh! Why, you little - Now I'll have to read this all over again. Like my eyestrain wasn't bad enough already."

The Sniper turned back to his teammates, save the Scout who was running around in a panic distracting Merasmus, and the spy, who'd gone off somewhere cloaked. "Alright guys, since Soldier's gotten us into this mess again, let's just give this all we got. I say on the count of three, we just charge out there and shoot him."

"Heavy like this plan," said the Heavy, while the Soldier nodded.

"Yeah, why no'," said the Demo, taking a swig from his bottle.

The Engie shrugged and picked up his sentry gun, while the Pyro clapped excitedly. The Medic grinned maniacally and prepared to flip the switch on his Ubercharge.

"Alright, on the count of three," Sniper said. "One, two –"

"CHHHHAAAAAAARRRRGGGGE," the Soldier screamed, running around the corner.

"Or we could just go now," the Sniper said, sighing. "I don't know why I bother, sometimes," he whispered to himself while everyone else ran out towards the control point, which Merasmus was currently standing on. The Spy appeared from nowhere and patted him on the shoulder. "There, there. At least you got them slightly organized! Not in a very strategic way, but still!"

"You're not helping, Spy." The Spy laughed and recloaked.

The sudden assault had taken Merasmus by surprise, so he didn't have much of a plan beyond simply throwing bombs everywhere and hoping that they would hit some of the team. One flew directly towards the Heavy, but the Medic Ubercharged him just in time, so he just kept firing, laughing. The Engineer's minisentry wasn't so lucky, and he had to resort to simply using his shotgun. The Pyro was blissfully oblivious of any danger from the bombs, and continued to stand near Merasmus and shoot their flamethrower at him. The Demo simply[OW1] spammed grenades at Merasmus, managing to drunkenly stumble his way around the bombs, while the Soldier simply rocket jumped around them, sending a few rockets towards Merasmus when he could. The Spy was nowhere to be seen. From his vantage point on the stairway leading up towards the control point, the Sniper took potshots at the wizard's head.

The wizard tsk'ed in irritation and, still looking at the Bombinomicon, began to swing his staff around wildly, hoping to hit someone randomly. The team backed off him as best they could and continued firing, eventually causing him to stagger and kneel down. "Now," Sniper shouted, and every team member, even the spy, began shooting, stabbing, punching, throwing everything they had (not literally, except in the Scout's case) at him.

Merasmus tried to cover his face with the Bombinomicon, grunting in pain and screaming out, "You fools! I'm a ghost, that doesn't hurt at al-owww stop that!" The beating continued, until suddenly Merasmus stood up, knocking all the team members back. "Ah ha! I've found it! _Porta ad Aliud Planum Convocem_!" Nothing happened. The team looked at each other and shrugged. "Uh…hold on, hold on, one moment…" Merasmus flipped through the Bombinomicon, eventually coming to rest on one page. "Porta ad aliud," he mumbled to himself, before his face lit up. "Oh right, right, sorry." He cleared his throat. "Now, prepare yourselves, fools! _Porta ad Aliud Planum Convocem via Magnum Crepitus_! I'd forgotten that last part, you see." As he spoke, an enormous bomb appeared right in front of where Merasmus was standing. The team's eyes widened.

"EVERYBODY RUN," the Sniper shouted, as soon as he'd recovered from the shock, but before he could take a step, the bomb imploded, which would have been a relief, had it not created a rather large swirling vortex, which began to pull everyone save Merasmus in. The Pyro was the first to get sucked in, since they'd been standing closest to the bomb. They didn't seem to mind, however, as they simply raised their hands over their head and let out a happy sounding "Mppppphhhhh" as they were pulled into the vortex.

Next was the Demoman who, in his drunken state, had tripped and fallen right next to the now growing portal, and simply yelled, "Bloody heeeeellllll" as he was pulled through.

Next went the Engie, whose Gunslinger unfortunately gripped the wooden pole he was holding too hard and shattered it. All he managed to get out was an "Ah, hell," before he vanished into the vortex.

Then the Heavy, who'd pushed the Medic behind him once the bomb had appeared, lost his grip on the cracks in the wall he was grabbing on to, and was pulled into the abyss. The Medic, who'd been relying on the Heavy's body to block the suction, was immediately pulled in afterwards, though he was looking at the vortex more with curiosity than fear.

The Spy, who'd wedged his knife into the mortar between some of the flagstones and held on for dear life, felt the blade begin to bend under the pressure, and was reaching for one of his spares when the blade snapped. As he flew into the vortex, he uttered a simple "Merde," and then was gone.

The Scout, who had gotten a bit farther away from the bomb than the others before it went off and managed to grab a hold of one of the railings blocking off the underground, let out a loud "Ha," and flipped off the Spy as he was sucked in. Unfortunately, taking a hand off the railing had loosened his grip to the point that he could no longer hold on against the suction, and he was sucked in, screaming the whole time.

That only left the Sniper and the Soldier, the Sniper was still hidden behind his bulletin board, while the Soldier had Rocket Jumped and grabbed hold of a street light, which was somehow holding its position against the force. As he heard the Scout go in, the Sniper realized that the only members of the team who hadn't been sucked in were him and the Soldier, and he really didn't want to be left alone with him and Merasmus. And even if they left, he'd still get chewed out by the Administrator for letting everyone else on the team get taken away by some mysterious force, and he didn't much like that idea either. He sighed, knowing he really only had one decent option. He stepped out from behind the billboard and was quickly swept into the vortex, mumbling, "Bloody stupid soldier."

Now the Soldier was the only member of the team that remained. He was shouting expletives at Merasmus. As Sniper was taken in, he yelled, "Dammit, men! What kind of soldiers can't even take a little bit of extreme g-force! You have all let me down!" He turned back to Merasmus, who was floating in front of him. "You may have taken them, but you'll never take me! I can hang here all day with the help of my American clinging skills! You'll never-" Merasmus rapped his staff on the soldier's hands, and he let go. "That's cheating Meraaaasmuuuuus," the soldier yelled as he fell into the vortex. "You were the worst r-" was all he managed to get out before entering the vortex completely, at which point the portal sealed itself.

"Yes, yes, the worst roommate, I know," Merasmus said. "That was far more trouble than I thought it'd be." He turned to his side, where a woman was floating next to him. "Still, it worked out in the end."

"You know, I could have sent them the invitations," she said.

"No, no. They were mine to invite," he said, smiling.

"Alright, alright." She waved a hand and a portal appeared. "Shall we," she asked, gesturing towards it.

"After you," he said, bowing to her. She smiled and put him in a headlock, then laughed and said, "Let's go together," and floated into the portal.

Unbeknownst to either of them, right before the portal closed, someone else walked into it silently. Then the portal vanished, leaving no evidence that anyone had ever been at Kong King.

In Gensokyou, Reimu Hakurei, shrine maiden, sat on one of the walkways of her shrine, having just made herself some tea. She poured it into one of the two ceramic cups by her side, making sure it didn't spill. There was no one else at the shrine to share tea with anymore, Suika having gone to visit her property in heaven, but she always brought out an extra cup just in case a visitor dropped by. There were many occasions where the cup had sat beside her, unused, until she went to go put them back on the shelf, but every so often Marisa would show up, or Sanae, or sometimes even someone from the village, and the teacup would fulfill its purpose. Today didn't seem to be one of those days. Letting out a pleased sigh, she brought the teacup up to her lips, and was about to take a sip, when a loud boom echoed across Gensokyou, nearly making her drop her cup. Looking up, she saw a tiny point in the sky, out of which nine shapes seemed to fall in different directions, scattering them throughout Gensokyou. Then the hole in the sky closed itself, and things were silent once again. Reimu put down her teacup, reached for the teapot, and began filling the other cup. When the cup was about halfway full, she heard the telltale sign of Yukari's gaps opening (or at least, the sound Reimu had forced Yukari to have them make after Yukari's unexpectedly showing up in her bathroom one too many times), and the sound of two shoes touching the wooden walkway behind her.

"Reimu," a voice from behind her said, panting. "There's been a problem-" the voice began, before Reimu turned around and held the newly filled cup out to the newcomer, Ran. "Oh, uh…thanks," Ran said, grabbing the cup. She took a sip. "Mm, that's nice," she said, relaxing somewhat. "Anyway, a hole was punched in the barrier just a little while ago, and we think some thing fell through. Yukari's upset, she has no idea how something could have broken the barrier, even for just a few minutes, so she went to check on the stability of the barrier, and sent me to warn you."

"Mmmhm," was all that Reimu said in response.

"Um, so," Ran began, a bit put off by the blasé response, "can we count on you to resolve this incident?"

Reimu took a sip of her tea, and was silent for a few moments, seemingly staring off into the sky. Then she turned back to Ran, smiled, and said "Nope."


	2. Chapter 2: The Scout's Arrival

Before I begin, thanks for the views and reviews (thanks so much you three reviewers!). I'm so glad to have my work read and (hopefully) enjoyed, and I hope I can continue to entertain you.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled story.

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><p>The Scout came to. His instincts kicked in, and he immediately jumped onto his feet and swung his arms in what he thought were karate chop motions, but in fact looked more like someone trying to swat a particularly tenacious fly, yelling with each swing. Then he cracked an eye open, realized no one was around him, and promptly dropped his hands to his sides, his cheeks reddening slightly. Looking around, he found he was surrounded by green. The ground, which should have been gray or brown, was green, there were small piles of green slightly above the ground, some more green off in the horizon as far as he could see and, looking up, he saw that even the sky, which he knew should be blue or grey, or, at worst, black, was also mostly green. Of course, had he ever set foot out of Gravel Pit, Teufort, or Kong King, he probably would have realized that he was not, in fact, in some weird place made of Merasmus' green magic, but in a forest. As it stood, however, he desperately searched for some sort of escape from the magical prison he had found himself trapped in. And by "desperately searched for escape," I mean he ran randomly through the trees yelling his teammates names.<p>

"Hey Sniper! You there?" he tried, "Demo, Engie? Guys? Soldier? Medic? Heavy? P-pyro? C'mon, anybody!" He took a deep breath, and then whispered "Spy?," at which point he heard a rustling behind him, jumped about two feet into the air and whirled around. "Gah! Don't scare me like thaaa-," he began, before he saw what had made the rustling, and his voice trailed off.

It was not the Spy, as he had thought. It was, in fact, a woman. A woman with white hair cut somewhat short, a shield in one hand and a sword in the other, looking somewhat out of breath and panting, the wolf ears on the top of her head drooping down somewhat. Scout's brain, of course, had stopped at the fact that she was a woman and he was already trying to smooth his hair back into place and look like he hadn't just been scared out of his wits.

"Hello gorgeous," he said, putting on his winning smile, "I'm Scout, the fastest, most handsome guy in the world. And you?"

The woman looked at him with an expression of utter disbelief.

"Still in awe of me, huh? Yeah I get that a lot. Anyway, you want to go get some chicken?"

The woman simply stood there, her eye twitching.

"Uh…hello?" Scout said, waving his hand in front of her face. "You there? I mean, I get that I'm awe-inspiring and all, but this is kinda freaking me out."

Then she swiped at his hand with her shield.

"Whoa! Whoa," he said, recoiling. "Is that a no to the chicken then?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, finally speaking. Her voice had a slight hint of a growl to it.

"How about a hamburger then?" Scout asked.

"No!" the woman yelled, "I don't want to get anything with you! You're worse than Aya!"

"Oh…well, is she up for chicken then? Wait, this Aya's a chick, right, cause that name sounds female, but there was that one time," he shuddered, remembering the embarrassment of it.

"Yes, I mean no, I mean…look, will you just shut up so I can question you already," the woman said, throwing her hands in the air.

"Question me about what?" Scout said, before his eyebrows rose in realization "Oh wait, I get it! You want to skip past the whole date thing and get right to it, good plan! So, I like-"

"No! Dear Gods no! I just need to ask you why you're trespassing in Tengu territory!" the woman said, desperately.

"Ten-what-now?"

The woman closed her eyes, clenching her teeth together. "You're an outsider, aren't you?"

"Of course not! Weren't you listening? Everyone loves me! Well, except Spy, but screw him, he's a dick anyw-"

"How. Did. You. Get. Here," the woman asked, cutting him off.

"Oh, well it's a great story, Y'see the other guys and I were fighting Merasmus, he's this wizard guy who used to be Soldier's roommate until Soldier turned their place into a raccoon sanctuary and got him evicted, and we were shooting him and he was casting spells and it was awesome, but I was being the most awesome of course, cause I'd just been running circles around him and he couldn't even try and hit me, I mean I was like-"

"Get on with it!"

"Alright, alright, jeez. Anyway, eventually he got fed up and used his magic book to summon this gigantic bomb, and it created some sort of weird vortex thing that we all got sucked into. And then I landed over there somewhere," he said, gesturing towards where he came from.

"So that high-pitched screaming I heard earlier was you?"

"Wha-no! I wouldn't scream at something like that," Scout said, chuckling nervously. "Musta-musta been one of the others. Yeah, I thought I heard Spy screaming before I blacked out on landing."

The woman was rubbing her head now, muttering something about why this had to happen to her. Eventually, she spoke. "Ok, I'm gonna have to take you to Reimu. She can deal with all this."

"Do you think she'll want some chicken?"

The woman slammed her forehead into her palm and groaned. "No. No she will not 'want some chicken,' as you so eloquently put it. Now let's get moving before Aya shows-"

"Hey Momiji, did you say my name?" asked a black haired woman, swooping down from the trees. Momiji sighed. "And did you see the sky recently, I mean that explosion was really something, wasn't it," the woman continued. "I started writing an article about it, but –oh!" She noticed the Scout for the first time. Then she got a mischievous grin on her face. "What's this here, Momiji? You sneaking off guard duty to be alone with some huuuman? The scandal, the scandal! I've already got a headline for it," she said, pretending to write in her notebook, "'Workaholic Tengu Caught Meeting Human for Romantic Tryst' and then underneath it: 'Friends and colleagues shocked and appalled by her secret.' Sounds good, right?"

"Aya," Momiji said, growling. "I am not in the mood for your jokes right now. And for your information, I'm doing my job. He was in Tengu territory, and therefore must be questioned and sent out. And now that I know he's an outsider-" she began, before getting cut off by Aya.

"Of course he's an outsider, don't you see those clothes?"

"Hey, some of us don't have time to go to the village to see what's 'in style'," Momiji replied, but Aya was no longer listening.

"Hey, you, outsider," she said, pointing at the Scout. "Can I get an interview? An exclusive with an outsider would sell like crazy."

"Aya! He needs to be taken to Reimu, so she can deal with him," Momiji said. "There are rules about this!"

"But an interview with him wouldn't even have to take that long. He'd get to Reimu eventually," she said, hovering in front of Momiji and leaning forward, hands folded across her chest.

Momiji got into a fighting stance and growled. "Get out of my way, Aya."

The Scout, who had been watching the whole time, decided that now was the time to step between them. "Ladies, ladies, there's no need to fight over me! You're both very…uh…beautiful chicks, and I'm sure we could just have a threesome or something."

Momiji stared at him blankly while Aya broke down laughing. "Oh man Momiji," Aya managed to say between laughs, "I like this one. He's funny."

"Only if you've got as strange a sense of humor as you do, Aya," Momiji said. She let out a sigh. "But I guess you'll never leave me alone unless you get an interview or something, will you?"

"Nope," Aya said cheerfully.

"Then you can interview him on the way, ok?"

"Alright!" Aya pumped her fist. "Lemme get a picture first, ok?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Momiji said, waving her hand dismissively.

"Ok, Mr. Outsider, say cheese."

The Scout immediately jumped into his "flexing" pose, which consisted of him curling his left bicep (which did a good job of showing his lack of arm muscles) and smiling towards the camera. Aya flitted around, taking pictures from every angle she could. Every now and then, the Scout would switch arms or change position to standing still and looking off into the distance, which might have made him look thoughtful had he not ended up looking at the tree branch right in front of his face. "Ok, that's good," Aya said after a while, during which Momiji had gone from exasperated to angry and finally to resigned.

"So can we get going now?" Momiji asked.

"Yep!"

"Joy," Momiji said flatly. She got up and began to walk in the direction of the Hakurei shrine. Aya and the Scout followed after her.

"So, Mr. Outsider-" Aya began, before the Scout interrupted.

"You can just call me Scout," he said. "Or lover, if you'd prefer," he continued.

Aya laughed. "Ha, ok then Mr. _Scout_," she said, causing the Scout's smile to falter somewhat. "What's it like outside Gensokyou?"

"Uh, well definitely less green. I mean, what even _is_ this stuff," he said, grabbing a handful of leaves off of a tree as he passed. He rubbed them between his fingers, then dropped them like he'd been stung. "Urgh, that feels gross." He shook his hand. "I mean, where's all the dry-ass dirt? And the dull brown buildings? And the cement, and the steel and stuff!?"

Aya was writing furiously. "So there are no trees where you come from?"

"If trees are these green things, then no, no there aren't."

"Interesting…and this 'cement' you mentioned is?"

"You don't have cement here? Then what the hell are your streets made out of?"

"Uh…dirt."

"Huh…weird."

"So, what do you do on the outside? Like what's your job?"

"Oh, I'm so glad you asked," Scout said, grinning widely. "I, along with my team, but they're not that important, help protect the world from the great evil that is Builder's League United."

"I see, I see. And how do you do that?"

"By killing all their dudes." Momiji stopped, and Aya's pencil stopped writing. The Scout, who hadn't noticed this, kept going. "And I'm like totally the best at it too. Much better than that freaking Spy. He's such a coward. I mean all he does is cloak and hide like a-" at this point, Scout realized that they'd stopped following him. "What? What'd I say?"

"Did you say you killed people," Momiji asked.

"Well yeah. I mean, they're trying to kill me, so I gotta kill them to protect myself. And it's kinda my job."

"And you took this job voluntarily," Aya asked.

"Hey, it's a way to make a living. And I'm not exactly uh…'qualified' to do much else. Besides, it's not that uncommon a job. And it's not like the deaths are permanent or anything."

Aya gripped her pencil tightly. "Wait, what do you mean, 'not permanent'?"

"Eh? You mean it's not like that here? There's a whole system Engie and Medic set up. Don't really know how it works, but if we get blown up or shot in the head or whatever, we just respawn."

"Respawn?"

"It's some machine Engie and the Medic made. I don't really know how it works, but basically if we die, we just end up in one piece back in the base, with memories intact. It had somethin' to do with 'jeans' or somethin'. Though I don't know what some pants have to do with anything. Anyway," he said, shaking his head, "it required so many samples! Skin samples, hair samples, blood samples, bone marrow samples, and, uh," he shuddered involuntarily, "_other_ samples. Man, I never wanted to think about that stuff again."

Momiji and Aya stared at each other for a good few seconds. "Is, is that even possible?" Aya asked.

"Why the hell are you asking me?" Momiji replied.

"You hang out with Nitori all the time, right? She knows science stuff, so I thought maybe," Aya said, before Momiji interrupted.

"That she what, mentioned she'd found a way to beat death? Yeah, no."

Aya paused for a second. "Well, I don't think he's lying, at least not intentionally," she said, frowning.

"How would you know?"

Aya tapped her fan to her nose, smiling. "Years of doing interviews for my paper have taught me the telltale signs of a liar."

"What?" Momiji said, loudly. "Just last week you published a story saying that Marisa had been seen having a love affair with Alice and Patchouli at the same time. In the Hakurei shrine. On top of a sleeping Reimu."

"So?"

"So that was a complete lie, which everybody involved in the story personally came to tell you," Momiji said. "Or did the massive beating you took afterwards make you forget?"

Aya rubbed the back of her head and winced. "Well, I said I could tell if someone was lying. I never said I wouldn't publish it." Momiji glared at her. "What? I can't help it if the lies are more interesting than what actually happens around here most of the time."

Momiji shook her head in surrender. "Fine, whatever, he's not intentionally lying. Doesn't change the fact that he could be dangerous. I mean, he's basically a hitman," she glanced over at the Scout, who was looking at them with a leer on his face. When he saw hee look at him, he quickly tried to put on his biggest smile and reached out a hand to lean on a tree, but his hand missed the tree trunk he was aiming for and he promptly fell over. "Somehow," she finished, turning back to Aya.

"C'mon, Momiji," Aya said. "Do you really think he's a threat?" She pointed behind her at the Scout, who was hopping around in agony, having gotten up and kicked the tree in anger, only to injure his foot.

Momiji was silent for a moment. "Maybe it's an act to lower our guard," she said, sounding unsure, as the Scout, while hopping around, managed to trip on a tree root and fall face first into the tree he'd kicked.

"If that's an act, then he's the most committed actor I've ever seen," Aya said, as the Scout staggered back from the tree, clutching his nose.

Momiji sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right," she said. She turned towards the Scout, who was glaring at the tree with blood dripping down his face, baseball bat in hand. As she opened her mouth to tell him they were going to continue walking, he swung his bat at the tree, making a loud clanging noise. Momiji, whose ears are rather sharp, heard the loud ringing in her ears and felt her head begin to ache. Before she could fully recover, he did it again, and again, and again, until the loud ringing of aluminum meeting wood rand throughout the forest. Momiji's eyes began to water in pain, while Aya, who'd put earplugs in the second she'd seen the Scout begin to swing the bat, gave her a sympathetic glance. After around twelve hits, the tree began to creak ominously, a large indent made in its base. When the Scout swung his bat again, there was a loud cracking noise, and the tree began tilting towards them.

"Ha! Serves you right you stupid tree," the Scout said, looking pleased with himself. As he saw the tree begin to fall towards him, however, his expression slowly shifted into one of fear, and he let out a small squeak. Looking behind him, he saw that Aya had already grabbed Momiji and flown off to the left of the tree, and he hastily ran after them. He'd barely made it out of the way when the tree hit the ground with an enormous thud, and the shockwave threw him forward, causing him to slide into the base of yet another tree.

Momiji, whose eyes seemed to be bloodshot, staggered towards the Scout, sword in hand, before being grabbed and held back by Aya. "Aya, let me go," Momiji said, sounding surprisingly calm. "I just need to kill him a little bit. You heard him, he'll just respawn, it'll be fine. Right?" she asked, turning her head back towards the Scout.

"H-hold on," he said, holding his hands up and scooting backwards, the expression on Momiji's face reminding him of nothing more than the Heavy whenever Scout's pranks went perhaps a bit too far, like that time he'd put wasabi in his sandvich, or painted flowers on Sasha, or glued his boxing gloves onto his hands while he slept. "I-I was just teaching that stupid tree a lesson! I didn't know it would fall towards us," he said, figuring she was upset about the tree almost crushing them.

"Teaching a _tree_ a lesson, huh?" Momiji growled. "A tree? Trees can't even learn, you goddamn idiot! All you've done is teach my eardrums what pain feels like!"

"Well," said a voice coming from the direction of the fallen tree, "I would have to disagree with you there, Ms. Momiji." At the sound of the voice, Aya and Momiji suddenly stiffened and turned around slowly. "Trees _are_ capable of learning. Very few creatures would be able to last hundreds of years without being able to learn. In fact, I'd say this poor tree knew quite a bit before you knocked it down." A woman stepped out from behind a tree, swinging a pink parasol around in her hand. She was dressed in a plaid red dress and her shoulder-length green hair framed her face quite nicely. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling, but she radiated an aura of sheer anger. She came to a stop, and pointed her parasol at the Scout. "It certainly knew more than you at any rate, little human."

The Scout, naturally, was oblivious to the aura she radiated. "Well hello there, beautiful. Am I in heaven?" he said, attempting to sit up. Momiji looked at him in sheer astonishment, while Aya stifled a laugh.

The woman in the red dress, for her part, looked unfazed. "Not yet. Though the possibility is becoming more and more likely." She walked up to where the Scout was sitting, combing his hair with one hand and trying to stop his bloody nose with the other, and planted her parasol point first in the ground right in front of him, causing the Scout to flinch and instinctively cover his crotch. She leaned forward, and said, in a hushed voice, "I really wish I could kill you right now." Then she leaned back, and speaking slightly louder, said, "But that would cause problems for Momiji, here, who's really rather nice, as far as Tengu go," she nodded at Momiji, "And I guess for the flighty rumormonger here as well, who could go jump in the lake for all I care." Aya seemed about to say something, before the woman spoke again. "Though I must admit her paper does make some nice fertilizer."

Aya slumped over, looking defeated. "Gee thanks, Yuuka," she murmured, as sarcastically as she could muster.

Yuuka, as the red-dressed woman was apparently named, shrugged. "It's certainly not useful for anything else." She turned back towards the Scout. "The fact remains, however, that you have destroyed one of the most ancient and knowledgeable trees in this forest, and as such, need to be punished." With one fluid motion, she yanked her parasol out from the ground and held it an inch away from the Scout's (still bloody) nose. "Are you prepared?"

The Scout looked puzzled, before asking, "Is this some sort of S&M thing?"

Momiji covered her face while Aya buckled over laughing. Yuuka blinked, then shook her head, sighing. "I'll take that as a 'yes,' then," she said, and the tip of her parasol began to glow. "This _probably_ won't kill you, so it's ok to use, right?" she asked, smiling, before the master spark went off.


	3. Chapter 3: The Soldier's Arrival

So first a quick note on the structure of this story. I'm planning on doing it in a cycle, so one scout chapter, then one soldier chapter, then one pyro chapter, etc., etc. While I like this structure because it keeps each character in some sort of focus (and it suits my writing style of writing for whichever character I come up with an idea for), it also means that cliffhangers like the one I left Scout on are gonna last for a while, which I realize might be annoying, but I hope each character's chapter is funny or interesting enough to keep you reading.

Alright, note over. Let's continue this thing.

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><p>The Soldier, or Jane Doe to whoever'd read his damn file, was dreaming. "No, Lieutenant, I didn't clean the dishes with swamp water. It was bog water! Much better for you. Toughens up your insides so they're as strong as your outsides," he mumbled. "Don't give me that Private! Parasites are good for you! Well go run back to mommy then, you cowards! When I've single-handedly taken this jungle compound because their bullets couldn't penetrate my organs, you'll be sorry you didn't join in! Lousy recruits today can't even take a few parasites!"<p>

A hand shook his shoulder, "Mister?"

"And another thing! Just because it's hot doesn't mean you can all go take off your combat fatigues! Civilian attire is not tolerated in my unit! What? I don't care if Marlow is currently on fire, you will remain in your fatigues until this war is over, understand?"

"Mister, you should probably get up," the voice said.

"Get up? When there's probably snipers in every tree? You must be mad! What do you mean they're just birds? Birds don't speak English, Private. They only speak Spanish!"

"Mister, your leg's on fire," the voice said.

"Nonsense! I think I would know if my leg was on fire! It's simply being dipped into sulfiric-aaaagh it burns!" The Soldier woke up and flailed around attempting to pat his leg out, since it was, as the voice had said, on fire. "Fire, fire, fire! Medic!" He felt a large gust of wind, and the fire on his pants went out. "Phew. Thanks for the save wind. I always liked you," he said, turning towards the direction the gust of wind had come from. There, he saw a young woman with a green bow in her long black hair, dressed in a green skirt and a white blouse, with an odd gem in the middle of her chest. But perhaps the most striking thing about her was the black and white wings coming out of her back, which she was currently using to hover.

"Did it work? Are you not on fire anymore," the woman asked, as she gently came down to land. "Orin told me to try that if anyone caught fire again."

The Soldier was busy trying to regain what little sanity he had left, and as such simply said "Yuh."

The woman tilted her head to the side and said "Unyu?"

"Yes! I am not on fire," the Soldier shouted back. Glancing at the woman's wings, he asked, "Are you an eagle? Are you the personification of America come to help me send Merasmus' ass back to hell? Because the help would be appreciated! Though I would expect the personification of America to look more like Mr. Washington."

"Washington? Merasmus? America? What're those?" the woman asked, her head still tilted to the side.

The Soldier gasped in shock. "You aren't American?" he asked, attempting to pull his rocket launcher off his back.

"I'm a hell raven," she said happily. "What's a 'Merican?' Is it like a pelican?"

"Damn that Merasmus," the Soldier yelled, trying to get his rocket launcher untangled from the straps on his back. "He's sent me somewhere inhabited by savages who don't know the," a tear dripped from his eye, "GLORIOUSNESS that is America! His capacity for torture knows no limit!"

The woman looked distracted. "Wait, are they 'Mericans' or 'Mericas?' Because now you've said both."

The Soldier wasn't paying attention, as he had finally managed to extract his rocket launcher, and shot a rocket towards the woman. Or that's what he was planning to have happen, at least. Instead of firing a rocket, he seemed to fire a strange, glowing, slow-moving orb. It approached the woman, who dodged past it. "Wait, are we having a danmaku fight? Is that what's happening?" she asked. The Soldier didn't really know how to answer that. He looked into the barrel of his rocket launcher, trying to see if he'd accidentally picked up and loaded strange glowing orbs instead of rockets, or if he was using the Cow Mangler and had forgotten about it. As he thought, however, it was his regular old rocket launcher, but it didn't look loaded when he looked down the barrel, he could see the spot he normally loaded the rockets in to, and it was completely empty.

"Merasmus," he screamed. "What did you do to my rocket launcher!" As he yelled, the projectile exploded, sending twenty tinier orbs zipping about in all directions. One managed to clip the woman, and she let out a yip in surprise and looked behind her to see the smaller projectiles zipping around, bouncing off walls.

"That's a clever trick," she said. "But now it's my turn!" A lot of small orbs, similar to the ones the Soldier's rockets had turned into began flying in every direction. The Soldier could barely move fast enough to dodge the first few that came his way, and ended up getting hit by a couple that moved into his path seemingly at random. To his surprise, they simply stung a bit. He gritted his teeth and turned to face the woman, firing his rocket launcher as fast as he could at her.

"You'll never beat the might of this Mann-made rocket launcher, you barbarian…ess! It has only exploded in my hands once today!" The woman continued to dodge the projectiles as best she could, but since she couldn't see behind her she was hit by a few of the smaller ones that the larger one exploded into. Soldier, being unable to fly, was having a bit of trouble dodging the now near constant stream of orbs coming from the woman, as whenever he tried to dodge one of the shots he seemed to find himself in the path of two more. Luckily they weren't hurting too badly yet, but he could tell it was only going to get worse. However, he managed to get off a lucky shot and hit the woman right in the chest, causing her to grunt in pain and stop sending out orbs for a bit.

"You asked for it," she yelled, and the Soldier saw the strange wooden object covering one of her arms begin to glow. His eyes widened as he saw a giant glowing ball begin to form at the end of her arm, one that was even larger than him. Before he could react, she fired it at him, and the hail of small orbs began even faster than it had been before. Though the soldier tried to dodge the giant ball of energy, he knew he wouldn't be fast enough. Even though it shrunk slightly, it was still the size of his chest when it hit him. It _burned_. His skin felt like the Pyro'd been aiming their flamethrower at it for hours. He bit back a scream, not willing to give this woman the satisfaction of knowing how much that'd hurt. He knew he probably wouldn't be able to last through another one, so he smiled grimly and aimed his rocket launcher at the ground.

"Mister, you're supposed to aim that thing at me! You're not going to hit me with it if you aim down."

He barked out a laugh and shook his head. Then he jumped towards her, and fired at the ground. His feet felt burned, as they always did when he rocket jumped, but he was used to it by now. He strapped his rocket launcher to his back and reached for a grenade on his bandolier, screaming his defiance in the most eloquent way he could muster: "Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!"

The woman's eyes widened in surprise, and she began to grin. "Oh wow! That's really cool mister! But didn't it hurt?"

"It is a small price to pay to defeat yo-" the Soldier began, before getting hit by another large energy ball, "-oooaaaarrrgh!" He nearly dropped the grenade, but held onto it, managing to pull the pin and release the safety lever at the same time. "My only regret is that this is probably going to kill me," he yelled, as he neared the peak of his jump, and was face to face with the woman.

"Kill you? But danmaku can't kill people. That's the whole point," she said, tilting her head to the side. The soldier looked at her, puzzled.

Then the grenade exploded, and the soldier blacked out again.

Orin was on her way to the Hell of Blazing Fires core, having collected a few bodies Okuu could use to regulate the temperature, when she heard Okuu and someone else shouting at each other. When she heard the telltale sounds of Okuu's third leg activating, she rushed as fast as she could towards the core. She wondered why anyone would ever get into a danmaku battle with Okuu. Most people knew how powerful she was, and if someone was attacking her they were either incredibly stupid, like that ice fairy, or incredibly powerful, like that gap youkai. As she began to reach the long hallway to the core, she heard a man's voice yell out something about regrets, and Okuu's response. Then there was a loud bang, and the sound of two bodies hitting the floor. She rushed into the core chamber to see Okuu collapsed on her back, seemingly unconscious, and a man collapsed face first on the ground nearby, a strange device on his back. She quickly ran over to Okuu and made sure she was still breathing, which she was thankfully, and then walked over to the man.

It was someone she'd never seen before, she was sure of that. He didn't appear to have any horns or animal ears or a tail, so he seemed to be human. She knew he was still alive by his very, very loud breathing, and was sorely tempted to just toss him into the fires if he'd done this to Okuu. But Lady Satori would probably want to interrogate him first and find out why he'd attacked her, so she dumped her wheelbarrow out into the fires and flung the two of them into it, the strange man first of course, so Okuu wasn't the one getting crushed. Once they were both loaded, she began to wheel them back to the Palace of the Earth Spirits. Hopefully the fires wouldn't need too much regulation while Okuu was recovering.


	4. Chapter 4: The Pyro's Arrival

Hi again! Just wanted to thank you all for the reviews, they're very motivating. Also, this introduces you to my weird desire to explain things that don't need explaining, if the respawn exposition in the Scout chapter didn't tell you that already. As a result, it's less comedic than the last few chapters have been, but I still hope you enjoy it!

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><p>The Pyro awoke to a hand shaking their arm.<p>

"Hey, anyone alive in there?" The Pyro shook their head. "Ah, very funny. At least you're still alive. Woulda been a pain if I followed that crash just to find you dead." The Pyro looked at the arm that had shaken them. It looked like a regular arm, except it was slightly see-through, and there were bubbles flowing underneath it.

"Mmphhh," the Pyro said, rubbing the arm happily.

"Uh…what d'you think you're doing," the voice that the arm presumably belonged to asked. "I mean, I get you're happy to be alive, but that's creepy." The Pyro mumbled happily. "Ok, that's enough," the voice said, and another arm entered the Pyro's view, also with bubbles under its skin, and pried the first arm out of their grip. The Pyro reached for them and mumbled sadly, then dropped their arms to their sides and looked up towards the voice. It was the most beautiful woman the Pyro had ever seen. She had white hair, and wore a white shirt and some overalls, the pants of which were covered with seals. But what made her the most beautiful to the Pyro was that she seemed to glow from inside. Bubbles flowed throughout her body, and, as if she were some sort of prism, every color of the rainbow shone within her. The Pyro looked at her in awe.

To Mokou, it looked more like the Pyro had had an aneurysm. "Hello?" she said, waving her hand in front of the gas mask's eyepieces. "Are you still there?" The mask followed her hand, so she guessed whoever was inside must still be conscious. "Can you understand me? If you can understand me, say something."

The Pyro snapped out of their reverie to respond. "Mmph mph mmphmphmph mph," they said.

"What?"

"Mph mph mphmphmph mph"

"I can't understand you. Could you take off the mask?" The Pyro vigorously shook their head. "Great. Well look, if I can't speak to you I don't really know how to help you."

"Mph mph mmmmph," the Pyro said, looking downcast. Then they raised their head, held up a hand, and said "MMMMPH!" They reached into their pocket and took out what looked like a small green blob with two small black eyes, and plopped it on their head. For a second, nothing happened. Then the Pyro suddenly stiffened and began to shake.

"What the heck? Are you alright?" Mokou said, reaching for the blob. The Pyro held up a hand and shook their head. Mokou frowned, her hand in midair. "This really doesn't seem like it's safe for you," she said. The Pyro shook their head, and then the Pyro suddenly seemed to relax again.

"It is ok," the blob on top of the Pyro said in a monotone voice. "Terry here," the Pyro pointed at the blob, "just had to connect to my speech centers so it could speak properly."

Mokou recoiled a bit. "Wait, you mean that thing," she also pointed to the blob, "is connected to your brain?" The Pyro nodded. "And you're ok with that?"

"I am sorry if this frightens you. This is the only way I can speak with others intelligibly."

"You can't just take off your mask?"

"No." Though Mokou waited, the Pyro refused to elaborate. Eventually the silence got to be too much for her.

"Um…ok then. Well, look, whatever your name is-"

"Pyro."

"Pyro? Really?" The Pyro nodded. "That doesn't seem like a real name, but you know what, whatever, this whole thing is weird in the first place. Anyway, I saw you crash land here, so I thought I'd come by and try and help you out of the forest, since it's kinda my job. But first, do you remember how you wound up here?"

"Yes. The team and I were playing with Merasmus, when he opened the drain on the bathtub and we were all sucked down the drain and would up here."

Mokou raised an eyebrow. "A bathtub. Really."

"Yes," the Pyro said.

"And this bathtub was large enough to hold you and your friends and this Merasmus?"

"Yes. It is very spacious."

"And when the drain was pulled, it took you here to Gensokyou?"

"Apparently."

Mokou suspected that she was dealing with someone who was perhaps just a little bit insane. She had nothing against insane people, hell, she'd been insane at a few points in her life, but they were unfortunately rather difficult to understand. "Right. Well then. Do you have any idea where your friends went?" If they were telling the truth about their friends being dragged along with them, she should probably find them and help them out, if possible. Maybe she'd be able to understand them better than she could understand Pyro.

"No. The drain shot us out in all directions."

Mokou sighed and pulled a cigarette from a pocket in her overalls. She put it to her lips and made a small flame with one hand, making sure to keep it out of sight of the strange person in front of her. Spooking them now would be troublesome, and she didn't feel like trying to run after a crazy person, as they tended to do unpredictable things like jump off tall cliffs or not listen to her when she talked about the dangers of the bamboo forest. Making sure to keep her hand hidden, she lit the cigarette, then put out her hand and inhaled deeply. She found it soothing, and relaxed slightly.

Then she heard a clapping noise, and looked over to find the strange person clapping loudly and bouncing up and down on the soles of their feet, while the strange blob said, in the same monotone voice, "Ooh. Ooh. Do it again. Do it again."

She forgot to exhale, and broke down coughing, tears filling her eyes. "Please," she said, when she was able to speak again, "Don't say things like that in such a monotone voice. It's just wrong."

"But…but…you can create the bubbles and light just from your hands. You are filled with it."

Mokou looked at them, confused. "Bubbles and light?"

The Pyro nodded. "You made the bubble blower blow so many bubbles, and the stickmen shouted hooray."

"The bubble blower? Do you mean this," she asked, picking the cigarette up from the ground where it had fallen after her coughing fit. The Pyro nodded their head. "It was blowing bubbles?"

The Pyro tilted their head to the side, "Of course it was blowing bubbles. That is what a bubble blower is for."

Mokou wondered what could possibly have happened to make this 'Pyro' see fire as bubbles, but quickly gave up. She didn't want to see what would happen if they wandered off on their own. If they set the whole forest on fire, she'd get blamed for it, and then that shrine maiden would come and it would just be a whole big mess. So she decided it would probably be best if she could just find some of Pyro's friends and let them deal with it.

"Ok then, Pyro. So you have no idea where your friends went, huh?" The Pyro shook their head again. "Alright. Well, let's get out of the forest first, the chances of them also landing here are probably pretty low, considering how big Gensokyou is." Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. "How many friends came with you?"

The Pyro began to count on their fingers. "Well, I didn't see them actually come, but there's the fast one, the rocket one, me, the Cyclops, the big one, Engie, the healing one, the jar one, and the sneaky one. Oh, and Merasmus. So that's…" they trailed off.

"That's ten, including you." Mokou whistled appreciatively. "Reimu's gonna be pissed. On the other hand, if they all landed in different places, we're more likely to find one without too much trouble." She shrugged. "Guess we'll see which we encounter first. Follow me," she said, and began walking. The Pyro got up and followed after her, humming to themself. Mokou hoped this wouldn't come back to bite her.

When they were about halfway through the forest, as Mokou reckoned, she felt a brief surge of heat behind her, which quickly vanished. She whirled around to see the Pyro trying their best to look innocent, their hands behind their back and head tilted skyward. "Pyro," she said, as sternly as she could.

The Pyro looked at her. "Yes," the blob said monotonously.

"What was that?"

"What was what."

"That flash of fi-bubbles. Of bubbles behind me."

The Pyro looked down. "Sorry. I was getting bored. I do that to pass the time."

"You made the bubbles?"

"Yes."

Curiosity got the better of her. "How?"

The Pyro looked up at her guiltily and carefully peeled back one of their gloves to reveal some scar-covered, charred skin and a strange device. It looked like a few miniature electric stovetops on each of their fingertips, each with wires connected to a series of small hooks on the finger tips of the gloves, and ones running back to a power source. They demonstrated that when they linked the hooks on both gloves' fingertips together, and then pulled them apart, it triggered the power source and made the stovetops trigger, superheating the air around their fingertips and causing a fireball. "Engie made it for me so I would stop using the hose," he pointed to a device on his back, which looked like nothing Mokou'd ever seen before. "He said it was too distracting. And dangerous, though I don't understand how bubbles are dangerous."

"Trust me, they can be very dangerous," Mokou said. "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to blow bubbles at me in here. Just cause you need to focus in this place or else it plays tricks on you, ok?"

"Ok."

"Good. Thanks. It's only a bit further." She turned her head back to smile at them. "So hold out until then, ok." The Pyro nodded.

They continued to walk in silence. Eventually they saw the bamboo begin to thin, and after a couple more minutes walked out onto the open plain. "Alright, here we are," Mokou said, sitting down on the grass. "Let's take a short rest."

The Pyro nodded and sat down, picking up a stick from the ground and staring at it intently. Then, their whole body shuddered, and they went completely still, and the blob spoke. "Thank you for letting me take control Pyro. Human," it said, turning towards Mokou. "I would ask your help."

"What'd you do to Pyro?" she asked, suspiciously.

"I asked them if I could take control, as I had an important favor to ask of you. They allowed me to, and are thus currently dormant."

She raised an eyebrow. "Why should I believe you?"

"I have no proof for you. I just wish to make my request and then you can decide." Mokou frowned, but eventually nodded. "Ever since we landed here, I've been faintly sensing the psychic energies of one of my kind. However, when we were in the forest, I couldn't locate them correctly."

Mokou snorted. "Yeah, it'll do that to ya."

"Yes. However, now that we are out, I can sense them clearly. They are over there," the blob said, while the Pyro pointed off towards a distant mountain. "It has been a very long time since I have seen one of my own kind. I would like to see one again."

"That's the Tengu mountain," Mokou said, frowning. "They're pretty protective of their territory, got patrols and everything. Could be difficult to get you there."

"It would be appreciated."

Mokou sighed. "Whatever. It's not like we have any idea where Pyro's friends are anyway. Maybe they'll be there."

"Thank you," the Pyro stiffened and then relaxed once again. Then they wiped a nonexistent tear from under one of the lenses in their gas mask.

"I'm so happy for you, Terry," the blob said, though Mokou recognized that it was the Pyro speaking again.

"S'truly the most touching story in the world. Shall we get going then? S'gonna be a difficult trip." She started walking towards the mountain, and the Pyro quickly followed behind.


	5. Chapter 5: The Demo's Arrival

Hey, it's the next installment! Cool.

First, a note about Tavish's accent, which I tried my best to imitate because it seems like an important part of his character. (I also did this for the medic, so there's that one to look forward to as well). Here's the basics of how I tried to imitate it: if the word ends in a t, I replaced it with a ' (so don't become don', that becomes tha', etc.), and "of" become "o'". There might be more, but I hope it's at least consistent and understandable.

In any case, I hope you like it!

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><p>Tavish DeGroot, known to his teammates as the Demoman, came to, his head aching. This was not, in and of itself, new to Tavish, but was normally the result of a hangover, not having been sucked through a magical portal and crashing through what seemed to be several layers of rock before landing on solid stone and passing out. He groaned and attempted to sit up, but the sudden pain in his back made him lie back down before he got halfway up. "Medic…" he croaked, attempting to take a swig of his scrumpy. Unfortunately, the bottle had broken in the crash, and all that was left were a few drops on the rim. He propped his eye open, saw the broken bottle, groaned again, and closed his eye. "Booze…" he croaked.<p>

"Someone say booze?" a voice said.

Tavish opened his eye again, looking for the voice. "I said booze. Y'got any?"

A woman swam into view, carrying a bottle and a large saucer, out of which some liquid splashed whenever she took a step. She seemed to have a horn on her forehead, but Tavish chalked that up to him probably having a concussion or some brain injury the Medic would have talked about for hours. "Oh, you're finally up," she said, offering him the bottle. He reached out to grab it, missing a couple times until she grabbed his hand and placed the bottle in it. Her skin felt rougher than normal, he noticed hazily. "Must have been some party if it sent you crashing through my house."

Tavish paused, bottle halfway to his lips. "S'your house? Sorry."

"Eh, no big deal," she said, shrugging. "People destroy it all the time. Hell, sometimes I do when I'm drunk. Or bored."

Tavish put the bottle to his lips and threw it back. It tasted strange, almost completely unlike his scrumpy or rum, but it had the lovely, familiar taste of alcohol, and that was all that mattered to him. As he drank, he felt the pain in his body begin to fade away, and his mind return to the peaceful drunken haze it was normally in.

"Wow, you can really drink for a human," the woman laughed when Tavish had downed the bottle. "I mean, it was already half empty, but still!" She reached down with one hand and lifted Tavish back on his feet by one of his grenade bandoliers.

"Och, tha' was nothing," Tavish said, recovered, "once, I had Engie set up a –hic - a teleporter between this rum dispenser and my bottle, and I chugged for ten minutes straigh'. Tha' was the best day o' my life." He sniffed as a tear dropped from his eye.

The woman smiled as if recalling something. "It's the best, isn't it?" Tavish nodded. The woman's smile turned back into a friendly grin, and she slapped him on the back, causing him to fall on his face "I like the way you drink." She picked him up again, turning him around so he was facing her, "And that's something I say about very few humans."

Now that he wasn't sober or in extreme pain, he noticed she really did have a horn protruding out of her forehead, and a broken manacle around one of her wrists. Also, something in those last few sentences nagged at him. "Wai' wai' a minute…" he said thinking, "you said 'it's the bes',' so does tha' mean –hic- does tha' mean you've chugged for that long too?"

The woman blinked, then roared in laughter, spilling a few drops from her dish, "Hahaha oh man, that's the first thing you ask? You're the first human I've ever met to care more about how much I've drunk than how I look." She wiped a tear of mirth from her eye. Tavish was slightly confused, but still looked at her questioningly. "Yes, yes I did. Suika lent me her gourd once, and it's bottomless you see, uses Oni magic, so I just chugged for like hours."

"Infinite booze," he said, awed.

"I know," the woman said, nodding understandingly. "I know." She sighed and shook her head. "But she doesn't lend it out anymore. It's a tragedy." Tavish's face fell. The woman smiled and patted him on the back, gently this time. "Cheer up! There's still tons of alcohol to drink around here. And besides, drinking the exact same booze all the time would get dull, wouldn't it? That's what I think anyway."

Tavish nodded. "Yeah. Yeah I guess you're righ'." He stuck out his hand. "Me name's Tavish DeGroot, by the way. An' thanks for the booze earlier. I needed it."

"Yuugi Hoshiguma," the woman said, shaking his hand in a tight grip. "Always happy to spread the booze around."

"Now tha's something I can get behind," Tavish said, laughing. "By th' way," he said, looking around, "where th' bloody hell am I?"

"You're in the underground," Yuugi said, spreading her arms wide. "Home of Oni, banished youkai, and evil cursed spirits!"

"The booze is CURSED?!" Tavish yelled, blanching.

"No no no," Yuugi said, shaking her head, "spirits as in ghosts."

"Don't scare me like tha'" Tavish said, color returning to his face. "I bloody HATE curses." He paused and put a hand on his chin. "Though come ta think of it, I don't like ghosts much either."

"Well, me neither, but Lady Satori and her pets do a good job of keeping 'em under control. Unless you go looking for 'em, you're not gonna see 'em."

"Tha's a relief." Then he frowned, his brow furrowing, "Wai' a mo'" he paused for a second, "wha's an Oni?"

Yuugi spluttered, spraying a fine mist of sake into Tavish's face. "What do you mean 'What's an Oni?' We haven't been gone so long that you'd forget all about us! Besides, we're not even really banished anymore, after that whole, that whole" she broke off, snapping her fingers, as if trying to remember something. A look of recognition dawned on her face, "Subterranean Animism Incident! That's what they were calling it in the village anyway."

Tavish looked at her blankly. "I don' remember hearin' about any o' that. An' Kong King's not a village, lass, it's a bloody giant city. Though maybe the drink ha' something to do with me no' rememberin'."

"Kong King? I've never heard of a place called that in Gensokyou."

"Kong King's not in wherever the hell Gen-sock-yo is, it's in China or Japan or somethin'."

Yuugi's eyes opened wide. "You're an outsider!"

"Wha's that supposed ta mean?"

"It means you're not from Gensokyou." Yuugi sucked in a breath, thinking. "I better take you to the village. Someone there can probably explain better than I can. If necessary, Lady Satori could definitely explain it, but she's," she paused, "a bit difficult to deal with."

"Look lass, I'm fine with going with you for a bit, but this won' take long will it? I need to find the rest of the team too."

"Oh heaven, there's more of you?" She grabbed his arm and started dragging him towards her front door, "We better find them, fast."

"Why?" Tavish asked, trying not to get dragged along the floor.

"Let's just say not everyone here's as nice as me," Yuugi said, as they cleared the doorway

"So tha team's in danger?"

"Well, they could be. Some of the oni down here are…well, they don't remember humans very fondly. If they find your friends, they might get in serious trouble."

"Well, they can take care o' themselves." He thought of Scout. "Most of 'em can, anyway."

"They can't take on a mob of angry Oni, no matter how prepared they are," Yuugi said grimly.

"Well, if ya say so, I guess. Where're we going then," he asked, realizing that they'd somehow already traveled far enough that he couldn't see Yuugi's house anymore.

"First I'm taking you to stay with a friend of mine, someplace safe. Then I'm gonna go look for your friends throughout the city. If they're with me, they're not likely to be attacked, I'm pretty well-respected around here."

"Wha'? But then why can't I come with ya? I wanna find 'em too…"

"If I have to worry about protecting you and looking for your teammates I can't go as fast."

"I don' like sittin' around doin' nothing ta help," Tavish said.

Yuugi looked over at him to see a frustrated look on his face. She skidded to a halt, and against her better judgment, spoke up. "Hmm…tell you what, if you promise to stay only in crowded areas, you can search the market district. It's unlikely anyone would attack you in a crowd of Oni, and the Merchant Oni won't attack you, since humans make up a large portion of their business now."

"Alrigh'," Tavish said, nodding.

"Good, I'll take you there, then I'll start looking down the alleys. I'll meet you at the center plaza of the marketplace after I've checked everywhere I can." Tavish nodded. They rounded the corner to find the Oni marketplace, already packed with people. "Alright," she said. "I'll be back as soon as I can. The center plaza's right over there," she said, pointing to a large raised square, around which were clustered a number of stalls. "See you shortly, I hope," she said, then leapt over a building and was gone, leaving Tavish staring in disbelief.

"Bloody hell," he said, awestruck. He tried jumping and only reached his normal height. "She mus' have a helluva kick." He shook his head and looked around. Most of those in the marketplace looked similar to Yuugi, or had a pair of horns instead, but there were a few who had no horns at all, and seemed, save their odd choice in clothing, to be normal humans. He decided to first approach a short woman who was dressed in black shirt covered up by a large brown sleeveless dress, wrapped with yellow ribbon. "Excuse me, lass," he said, reaching out. She turned to look at him, her face the picture of curiosity. "'Ave you seen anyone about who looks like me?"

"Eh? Like you? How so?"

"Ah. Righ', well, they've got the same color red as me on, an'," he trailed off.

"And?"

"Umm…hmm. Well we're mostly different after that, I suppose."

The woman frowned. "Sorry, but that's not a lot to go on."

"Yeah, I know, I know. Well, I'll just describe them separately then. One's skinny an' annoying, one's go' a helmet an's insane, one can only speak in mumbles, one's very large an' yells abou' sandviches a lo', one's go' a mechanical hand an' a hardhat, one's go' these small glasses an' walks around doin' experiments all tha time, one's looks like a vampire hunter an's go' a cut on his cheek, an' tha last one's go' one o' them ski masks on all the time."

"Hold on, hold on, give me some time to think, willya," the woman said, holding up her hand.

"Righ', righ', sorry," Tavish said. "I'm just worried s'all."

The woman nodded. "I get that. I'd be worried too if any of my human friends got lost down here."

"Eh? 'Human friends?'"

The woman looked at him, surprised. "You didn't know?" He shook his head. "Oh. I'm a youkai."

"But ya don' look any differen' from a human."

"Ha, well, not all youkai do." She held out a hand. "I'm Yamame Kurodani, an earth spider. Pleased t'meet ya."

"Uh, righ'," Tavish said, reaching out and shaking her hand. "I'm Tavish."

"Tavish, huh? That's a weird name."

"An' Yamame isn't?"

"Fair point, I suppose." She frowned and shook her head. "I'm sorry though, I haven't seen anyone like the people you've described recently."

Tavish sighed. "Well, I guess it was too much ta hope ya had."

"Tell you what though," she said, "I'll ask around. I'm more well known in this place than you, so maybe some people will be willing to talk to me."

"Ya'd do tha'?"

"Sure," she said, grinning. "Happy to help."

"Thanks," Tavish said, relieved. "Yuugi was helping me, but she wen' ta check the alleys."

"You met Yuugi?" Yamame asked. Tavish nodded. "That's good. She's pretty powerful around here, so if anyone knows where they are, she should be able to get it out of them. Ok, I'll go ask around there," she said, pointing to the opposite half of the market, which was seemingly filled with Oni. "You should be safer on this side, since this is more artisans and less pubs."

"Wai' there're pubs over there?" Demo asked longingly.

"Well yes, but they're filled with Oni. Drunk Oni. That's not a good place for a human to be."

"But…but…booze!"

Yamame gave him an amused look. "Like alcohol that much, huh?" He nodded. "Tell you what, I'll bring you one when I'm done, ok?"

"Now you're talkin'! Le's get goin'," he said, excitedly, and ran off towards his half of the market. Yamame chuckled and walked towards her half.

Tavish ran around his half of the market, to the bemused stares of those around him, asking everyone he found if they'd seen his teammates. Most of those around simply shook their heads and apologized, but a few simply glared at him and left without saying anything. Eventually, he came upon a woman sitting by herself. She was dressed in a purple dress with white lines on it and had on a scarf, even though it seemed fairly hot to Tavish. "Excuse me, lass, but-" he said, before getting cut off.

"I haven't seen 'em, so go away."

"But I haven' even told ya who I'm looking for."

She gave him a withering look. "You've been asking everyone in the vicinity about it. I overheard a while back. And I noticed how long it took you to ask me," she said, glaring.

"Well, it's no' like I was goin' in any order," he said. He grinned. "Did ya want ta talk to me sooner for some reason?" he said, leaning in.

She snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. It seemed interesting, so I wanted to be a part of it. But now that you've revealed yourself to be an idiot, I wish I could be like everyone else and not talking to you right now."

Tavish frowned. "Tha's a bit harsh, lass. Though I guess I don't really wanna talk to ya either, if you're like this," he began to turn away.

"What was that?" he heard her say behind him.

"I said I don' wanna be around ya if you're like this." He turned to face her. "I may be a drunk, and a wee bit violent, but at leas' I've got basic manners."

The woman smiled vindictively. "Oh, you're going to regret that." She stared into his eye, and he felt himself getting more and more thirsty, and getting more and more angry at all the Oni walking around with drinks in their hands. To an outside observer, his eye would have seemed to flash green for a second before fading back to its normal color.

He frowned. "I have ta go." He walked off towards the nearest Oni with a drink, one who'd glared at him earlier. "Where'd ya get tha'?" he asked.

"Why the heaven should I tell you?" the Oni growled. "You're a damn human, no way you'd appreciate it."

"Because if you don', I'm gonna do this," Tavish said, feeling light-headed, and reached his hand out, grabbing the bottle the Oni was holding and downing it one long, drawn out guzzle.

The Oni was too stunned to do anything at first, but as soon as Tavish was finished, his face stiffened into an expression of pure rage. "I hope that tasted good, cause it's gonna be the last drink you ever have!" He lunged at Tavish, who spun out of the way, still looking for more alcohol. He turned and saw one of the many bars in the plaza, and ran off towards it as fast as he could, the Oni still chasing after him. As he ran, he narrowly avoided colliding with someone carrying a large crate, who turned to yell at him, and as such, didn't notice the enraged Oni coming up behind him until he was bowled over. Crate forgotten, he began to chase after the first angry Oni, screaming threats. He, in turn crashed into somebody else, until the whole plaza was filled with fighting Oni.

Parsee looked on, feeling a sense of impeding blame, and rested her forehead in her hand. "Ah, crap," she said, then ran after the departing Tavish, doing her best to avoid the fighting Oni.


	6. Chapter 6: The Heavy's Arrival

Well, it's time for another chapter! This chapter may seem somewhat shorter than the others, but I wanted to get it out there, and this seemed like the best place to cut what I've written for the Heavy into a chapter. Hope you enjoy it.

And, as always, thanks so much for reading!

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><p>The Heavy awoke to the feeling of water washing over his boots. He looked down to find his legs on the shore of a lake, water trickling over them every time there was a tiny wave. Groaning, he pulled himself out of the way of the lake, and sat up. He put a hand to his aching head, murmuring, "What happened to Heavy?" Then his memory caught up to his present situation, and he growled. "When I find wizard, I am going to crush him, and crush him, and CRUSH him." He got up and stretched, joints cracking with every movement, and turned around to find himself face to face with a small girl with bluish-white hair and blue eyes, and strange crystalline wings on her back. They both yelled in astonishment and took a step backwards. The girl recovered first.<p>

"Who're you?" she asked, hands behind her back, looking slightly guilty.

"I am Heavy," said the Heavy, "Who is small fairy child?"

"Hey, I'm not a child! And my name is –"

"Cirno," yelled another fairy coming up to the pair. She had green hair tied in a ponytail and more insect-like wings, "there you are! I was looking everywhere for you!"

"Dai," Cirno yelled, turning towards the newcomer, "look what I found." She gestured towards the Heavy. He frowned.

"Heavy not 'what.' Heavy 'who.'"

"What?" asked Cirno, puzzled.

"Not what! Who!"

"What?"

"Who!"

"Who? Oh," Cirno said, "This is Daiyousei, but everyone calls her Dai. I was going to introduce you if you'd just waited."

The Heavy groaned and rested his head in his palm.

"I think he meant that earlier, when you said 'look WHAT I found,' it should have been 'look WHO I found,'" said Dai, who had been politely following the conversation. The Heavy looked thankfully at her and nodded.

"Oh. Well why didn't he just say so," Cirno said, shaking her head. "That's just silly."

The Heavy growled in frustration and Dai gave him a sympathetic glance. "Does tiny baby fairy WANT to fight Heavy," he asked, clenching his fists.

"Ha! I'm the strongest in Gensokyo! You wouldn't stand a chance." The Heavy doubled over laughing. "Wha- hey! I am! I'm definitely the strongest! Dai, tell him I'm the strongest!"

Dai backed away a bit, waving her arms, "Cirno I don't think we should provoke -"

"Daiiiii! Ugh fine, I'll do this myself! You want a fight you weak human, then you'll see the full strength of the strongest in Gensokyou!"

The Heavy stopped laughing, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "What did you call Heavy? Did you call Heavy weak?"

"Yeah! Cause you are!"

"Cirno, I really don't think –" Dai began, before Cirno cut her off.

"Shut up Dai! He started this," she yelled, collecting some ice shards around herself.

The Heavy stood up to his full height, towering over the fairies. Reaching into his back pocket, he took out a pair of red mittens and put them on.

"Ha," Cirno said, "too cold for you already?"

"Pff, this is nothing! In Mother Russia, this would be temperature of heat wave." The Heavy took a step closer to Cirno.

"Well I'm just getting started," she said, summoning more ice shards and lowering the temperature further. She began sending bits of ice towards the Heavy as he trudged forward, step after step.

"Pah, this is summer weather, baby fairy," he said, flecks of ice bouncing off his skin. He was about five steps away from her now.

"Sh-shut up! I've still got more you big…big…human!" she said, freezing the air and sending more ice at the Heavy.

The ice shards hit him more often now, leaving tiny marks where they hit, causing him to grunt in pain a bit. "This is still early autumn weather, little fairy." He stopped a foot away from her, and began to pull back his arm.

Cirno squeaked and used as much of her powers as she could, trying to freeze the man in place, or at least create some sort of shield to block him, but it wasn't enough.

The Heavy's mitten-covered fist hit her right in the chest, and she crumpled to the grass, the ice shards melting and temperature rising rapidly.

"Cirno!" Dai cried, flying in front of her, arms out wide. "Why'd you do that you big meanie!" She began punching him with her small fists. The Heavy merely looked annoyed and rolled his eyes, gesturing to where Cirno lay. Dai continued punching him until she started hearing laughter. Looking behind her, she realized Cirno was laughing, and looked completely unharmed.

"Ahaha, ha, Dai- Dai- you have to, ah ahahaha, you gotta try this, ahahahah, it's it's, hahahahaha," she managed, rolling around on the grass.

"Cirno, what-" Dai started, before turning to face the Heavy again, "What is this?"

"Is mittens. They make people laugh," he said, shrugging.

"Wha- why? How could they even do that?" Dai asked, shouting to be heard over Cirno's laughter.

"Heavy not know. Heavy receive them as gift for Smissmas, but no name was on gift. Heavy assume it some of Saint Nick's magic."

"Who-haha-who cares how they-ha-they work, they're awesome," Cirno chimed in, laughter dying down. "Hit me again!"

"Cirno, it's untested magic! What if it's dangerous? Remember that time you took one of Marisa's potions without her permission?" Dai asked, remembering.

"Hey, the smell went away eventually," Cirno said. "Besides, what harm could just causing laughter do?"

"Well what if you couldn't stop laughing? Think of how much of a hassle it'd be!"

"Laughter does not last forever. It lasts for somewhere between twelve and twenty seconds. Medic tested this," the Heavy said. "Many trials were done on teammates and I." He shuddered. "Laughter never seemed so scary."

"See Dai, it's fine," Cirno said. "C'mon, just try it once!"

"Cirno, just because he says it's safe doesn't mean it is. No offense," she said, turning to the Heavy, who shrugged, "but there could be something about it that this 'Medic' didn't find out about."

"Medic is smart man," Heavy said, confidently, "If something bad about mittens, he would know."

"Look, I just think we should be cautious," Dai said. "If it's something we don't know about-" she continued talking, but Cirno was miming punching motions behind her back, then nodding towards Dai and giggling silently. The Heavy sighed. On the one hand, Dai'd been the only sympathetic face he'd seen so far, but on the other, she was worrying a bit much.

"Little green fairy," he said, holding up his hands. "Is nothing to worry about. Heavy swears. Besides, is better than punching without mittens, yes?"

"Well yes, but-"

"Is fine. Trust Heavy, he wouldn't want to hurt tiny fairies," he said, patting her on the shoulder. She instantly started giggling, continuing into full-blown laughter. He withdrew his hand. "Oops. Heavy's mistake. Sorry." Dai tried to glare at him through the laughter but could only muster it for a half-second before she went back to looking amused. Cirno was laughing in the background.

"You should see your face Dai, it's hilarious!"

The Heavy groaned and rested his face in his palm with a thwack. Then he also began to chuckle, the holiday cheer the gloves spread getting to him too. This caused Cirno to laugh even harder, and Dai to smirk in between giggles. Eventually all the laughter faded.

"Oh man, that was great," Cirno said. "I told you it was fun Dai!"

"Well maybe, but it's still not something I'd trust without getting some magician to study."

"Wait," the Heavy said, in the process of removing his mittens, "Magician? Like the puny wizard Merasmus?"

Dai frowned in concentration, "I've never heard of a Merasmus. I meant like Miss Marisa or Miss Alice. Sometimes Miss Patchoulli, but she doesn't come outside very often, and after that incident with CIrno trying to freeze the mistress' parasol-"

"Hey, it was a great prank! Or would have been anyway."

"Well we're not allowed inside there anymore."

"Hmm, these wizards-" the Heavy began, a possibility occurring to him.

"Witches or magicians," Cirno said. Then she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper "They get really mad if you call them wizards. Last time I did, they yelled something about sexist stereotypes and blasted me into oblivion."

"Witches then. Would they know way to get Heavy back home?"

"What do you mean back home? Aren't you from the village?" Dai asked.

"What village? Heavy was in city before this. Puny wizard," he growled, "blew open swirly hole, which pulled Heavy and teammates in."

"Wait, you're from outside?" Dai asked, incredulously.

"Outside what?"

"Gensokyou!"

"Heavy never hear of that place."

Dai looked worried. Then she turned to Cirno, who still looked confused. "We should go tell Reimu."

Cirno frowned angrily, "Hmph. Why should we tell that meanie?"

"Cirno, someone's broken through the barrier, it's important! She's the one who deals with this kind of stuff."

Cirno remained unconvinced. "She's a mean, angry, jerkface who goes around whacking everyone with a stick. Especially me. I'm not going."

"Cirnoooooo..."

"No."

Dai sighed, frowning. After a couple seconds her expression brightened. "How about Keine then? She's ok, right?"

Cirno's frown lightened a bit. "Well, she does headbutt me all the time, but…I guess I usually deserve those, at least." She sighed. "Alright, fine. Let's go see the teacher lady. But I better get something for this, Dai."

The Heavy, who'd been silent throughout the conversation, spoke up. "Are Heavy's teammates likely to be there?"

"Well, it's really the only human settlement around, so they'll likely be heading there if they haven't been, well, attacked."

The Heavy frowned at this. "If teammates are in trouble, Heavy should help them." Then he sighed, "But if we don't know where they are, getting help finding them is best bet, Heavy supposes. This 'Keine' will help find them, yes?"

"Of course," Dai nodded. "She's really nice."

Cirno, who had flown off towards the village right after she'd agreed to go to Keine, turned back and yelled at them to hurry up. They ran after her.


	7. Chapter 7: The Engineer's Arrival

It's new chapter time, everybody! And, as probably most of you expected, it's the Engineer's time to meet a fellow engineer. As some of you also might have expected from a chapter based on the Engineer, there's a fair amount of exposition in this one, but it's (hopefully) still entertaining.

On with the show!

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><p>Dell Conagher, also known as the Engineer, woke up in a bush to the sound of a whirring noise and a voice seemingly mumbling to itself.<p>

"Come on, stay still, willya? I just want to study you a bit-eek!" There was a sound of metal hitting flesh. "Ouch! Bad hand!" There was a clanging of metal hitting metal, and Dell felt a flash of pain. He grunted and opened his eyes. He saw a small girl with green hair and a cap crouched next to his robotic right hand, sporting a small red mark on her cheek and looking at his hand in a mix of anger and interest. She didn't seem to have heard him. "C'mon, you stupid hand, just let me take a look at you!" It had its pointer finger up and was wagging it back and forth, while the girl tried to reach out at and grab it. Apparently the AI he'd installed in it was working. As he watched, the girl tried to grab the part where the hand connected to his flesh, only for the hand to hit her gently (though for a metal hand, "gently" was still about as hard as a sharp rap with a regular hand) on the head, causing her to kneel down in pain, rubbing her head. "Aaargh you stupid little-fine. Fine! You asked for this," she said, taking what looked like a cattle prod out of her bag and putting down her goggles.

Dell decided now would probably be a good time to speak up, before she either fried his hand's circuitry or just fried him. "Whoa miss, I still need that hand," he said, sitting up. She let out a high-pitched "eep," jumped five feet in the air, and dashed into the cover of some bushes. The tip of her cap still peeked up above the bush however, showing Dell that she was still there.

"Um, sorry miss, didn't mean to scare ya," he said. She didn't say anything. "Were you interested in this?" he asked, waving his gunslinger around. He thought he detected a slight nodding motion in the bush, so he went on. "You don't need to worry about it, it's perfectly fine. Just lost my hand in a little accident with the teleporter, so I replaced it." The bush remained still. He sighed. "It's kinda creepy isn't it?"

"No!" the girl exclaimed, peeking her head out of the bush. "It's amazing! I've worked on prosthetic technology for years, but that hand's fantastic. That AI you've put in it is great." She rubbed her head, "And annoying, but still, it's impressive technology!" Then she seemed to realize that she wasn't hidden in the bush anymore, blushed and darted back into it.

"Wait, you actually like this?" he said, waving the gunslinger around. There was a nod from the bush. "Well I'll be. Never thought someone so young would be interested in stuff like this. Tell you what," he said, rubbing his chin with his good hand, "I need to find my friends who came here with me. If you help me, I'll show you how this works." He stuck out his hand. "Deal?" After a bit of hesitation, a hand reached out from the bush and shook his own. He smiled. "Thanks. Now, if only my PDA were working I could check where their teleporter receivers are, if they're still broadcasting, but…" he trailed off, taking the PDA out of his pocket. The display was cracked, and the casing dented in such a way that it made half the selection buttons unable to be pushed. "It got pretty messed up in the crash."

"What do you need to fix it?" the girl asked, eyeing the device with interest.

"Well, assuming the circuitry's not too badly damaged, I mostly just need some metal, some glass, and some smithing tools."

"Is that all?" the girl said, smirking. "I've got that back at my workshop, I'll take you there," she said, and began walking through the bushes, Dell following behind.

"Wait, you have a workshop?" he asked surprised.

"Course I do," she said indignantly. "What kind of kappa would I be if I didn't have a workshop?"

Kind of an odd last name, Dell thought, but who was he to judge. "I guess your family's really into engineering if even their youngest has their own workshop. Though then again, my dad did build me my first workshop when I was round about four, so who am I to talk," he chuckled.

The girl frowned. "Well I guess you could say that, but look mister, how old do you think I am?"

"It's Dell Conagher actually, little miss," causing her frown to deepen. "But to answer your question, I'd say you're 'round ten, maybe eleven?"

She snorted. "Well Dell, and my name's Nitori by the way, that's not even close. I'm probably older than you."

"You're pulling my leg," Dell said in disbelief.

"Nope. If was pulling your leg, I'd imagine you'd feel a sharp tugging sensation right around here," she said, poking his thigh. "But seriously, I'm a kappa. We're always relatively small, and we age slowly. The aging thing's true for all youkai, but the stature's pretty much kappa-specific."

"Youkai?" Dell asked curiously. "I thought your family name was Kappa."

Nitori stopped abruptly. "You don't know about youkai? Oh," she said, her face brightening in realization. "You must be from outside! That also explains why your technology is so different. I don't know why I didn't think of it before."

"Outside? Outside what?"

Nitori bit her lip in concentration. Eventually she asked, "Ok, what's the last thing you remember before waking up here?"

"Well, we were all fighting that wizard Merasmus, and he summoned a gigantic bomb out of that book of his. It exploded, and created some sort of vacuum or vortex, because it seemed to create enough suction to drag my friends and I through it, then I woke up to you trying to steal my hand."

"In my defense, I didn't think you'd be needing it anymore. But anyway, that vortex was probably a kind of…well not quite a trans-dimensional portal, because it's technically the same dimension, but a kind of trans-plane portal. Normally, this place exists in a different plane to whichever plane you were in, but still in the same dimension. It's in the same dimension as yours, but doesn't occupy the same space, which explains why this forest can exist while in your world there might be some buildings or something. You following me so far?"

"Well, as best as I get it, you're saying my friends and I got blown through a crack in the wall that separates this plane from our own, so we're in a space that exists on top of the space where we were. I don't get how that's possible, but let's say I accept it for now."

"Right well, this space was originally created to house youkai as a kind of sanctuary to prevent us from being wiped out. Youkai are…kind of hard to explain. But in general, if you think of some sort of mythological creature, like a," she waved her hand, trying to think of a creature he might know, before continuing, "a werewolf or vampire or something, that's a youkai. We kappa are a type of youkai that supposedly drowned people in rivers and played pranks and stuff, but we'd never do something like that anymore. It'd kind of screw over our best buyers, you know?"

"So youkai are mythical creatures. You don't look like a mythical creature I've ever heard of."

"Well, I was getting to that. See, this place kinda accelerated a natural process that makes us youkai start to look, well, human. I'm not entirely sure why it happens, but over time, youkai tend to evolve to look more human, possibly originally because the more human looking ones could get closer to human settlements for prey or something, but the end result is that pretty much all youkai here look human, save for some vestigial aspect like wings, a tail, horns, stuff like that."

"Huh," was all Dell managed to say.

"I know it might be hard to believe, but it's true, I swear." She started walking again. "But whether you believe me or not, my workshop's this way. And in case you do believe me, don't worry about your friends. Almost all youkai are pretty much harmless to humans nowadays, there's just a few that live near the magic forest that still attack humans. I mean, the tengu aren't really pleasant towards outsiders, but they won't kill them."

"My friends can take care of themselves." His thoughts travelled to the Scout. "Well, most of them can anyway."

"If you say so mister," Nitori said, shrugging her shoulders.

Dell wasn't quite sure what to make of the girl's story. It was pretty far-fetched, to say the least. But it worried him that she'd said it so confidently. That probably meant that she, at least, believed it, and that meant she was either telling the truth, or was very smart and completely delusional. Either way, that made her dangerous to be around. But he really needed that workspace. He sighed, and continued following her. He could probably knock her out, if necessary, though he really hoped it wouldn't come to that.

As they reached the edge of the forest, they looked out onto a small plain. A little ways away he saw a small house, seemingly made of thatch, reeds and mud, sitting next to a river.

"Ah, there it is. Home sweet home," Nitori said, gesturing towards the house. Dell raised an eyebrow. Nitori looked at him and frowned. "Oh don't give me that look. Most of the workshop's underground anyway. That's just my house to actually live in, since my so-called friends started worrying that I was sleeping in the workshop. Anyway, come on," she said, speeding up the pace. Dell sighed and walked after her, wondering if he was somehow getting swindled. As they approached, a figure standing right outside the house waved to them. "Hey, Hina's here," Nitori said, excitedly. "Hiiii Hina," she yelled at the figure. "Be there in a sec!" She turned towards Dell. "Hina's my friend. She comes and visits me from time to time. She's got a bad reputation because she's a misfortune goddess, but don't worry, she's perfectly safe to be around."

"So there are gods and goddesses here too now?"

"Well, pretty much just goddesses really. The gender ratio is pretty screwed up here."

While they'd been talking, Hina had walked up to meet them. "Hello Nitori," she said, nodding to her friend, who nodded back. "I didn't realize you would have someone else with you. Should I go?" she asked, looking warily at Dell.

"No, no it's fine. Dell here's from the outside," Nitori said, pointing over her shoulder at him.

"How d'you do miss," Dell said, lifting his hardhat in greeting.

"Oh, I'm, I'm doing fine," she replied, sounding surprised and a bit nervous. She gave him a curtsy. "And you? I can't imagine coming in here from the outside would be a very…pleasant experience."

"Well, the travel and landing hurt like the dickens, and I woke up to her," he pointed at Nitori over his shoulder, "tryin' to steal my hand here-"

"Hey!"

"But other than that it's been alright."

Hina smiled sympathetically. "You seem to have been rather unfortunate recently."

"Well, it beats getting blown to pieces, I suppose, but yeah." Nitori and Hina looked at him confused. "Just my job," he said, waving his hand dismissively.

"Right…well, I could help take away that misfortune if you want," Hina said.

"How exactly would you do that?"

"Well, it's a rather complicated ritual where I draw the misfortune out of you and into myself."

"Thanks for the offer miss, but I don't really trust rituals," Dell said. "They usually require some kind of faith, and I don't really have much of that," he continued, trying to be as polite as possible.

"Are you suuuure you don't want to Mister Conagher," Nitori asked, a mischevious grin on her face. "It's a pretty intimate ritual, I hear." Dell blushed, and Hina's expression went from downcast to completely embarrassed.

"Nitori, don't put strange thoughts into his head! All I do is spin," Hina said, turning towards Dell. "There's nothing 'intimate' about it! But," she continued, expression falling, "I understand if you don't want me to. No one has in a while."

Privately, Dell wondered if that was because they thought she was crazy. But she looked sad, and Nitori was switching between looking at Hina apologetically and looking at him with irritation, conveying the idea that if he ever wanted to use her workshop, he'd have to humor Hina. "Fine, fine, you can do the ritual. Just stop looking so sad, alright?"

"You mean it?" Hina asked, expression brightening immediately. With a slight glance sideways, Dell saw Nitori nodding subtly.

"Yes, I mean it. But no intimacy, alright? The AI in this guy might go haywire," he said, pointing to his gunslinger. Hina blushed and looked away, while Nitori chuckled.

"Ha, I was just kidding. No intimacy required," Nitori said. Hina nodded vigorously. She then turned and whispered into Dell's ear. "Thanks for doing this, really. People are afraid of her because they think she spreads the misfortune she collects, or 'leaks' it or something, but that's complete bull. She's been depressed about it for weeks."

Hina looked at Nitori suspiciously. "What are you telling him, Nitori?"

"Oh, just that the 'intimate' ritual costs extra." Hina groaned and put her head in her hands, while Nitori laughed.

After Nitori's, laughter died down, Dell spoke. "So, is there anywhere in particular we need to go for this?"

"No, I can perform it anywhere really. Right here's fine, if you'd like," Hina said.

"Well, if it's not the 'intimate' ritual, sure."

"Don't you start too."

"Alright, alright. Ready whenever you are."

"Ok. Nitori, could you move out of the way a bit? Don't want to accidentally remove _your_ misfortune," she said, glaring.

"Jeez Hina, learn to take a joke," Nitori said, walking out of the way.

"Ok, stand still please Mr. Conagher," Hina said. She put her hands above her head and began spinning on one leg. She began to spin faster and faster, and as she spun, Dell saw black mist begin to form around his body. As she spun faster, it began to get siphoned off of him and flow towards her, like gas being sucked into a vacuum. He was curious as to why misfortune seemed to coalesce into a gas, or if the gas was misfortune at all, but he heeded her warnings and remained still for the duration. Eventually, after her spinning had reached a rate seemingly unattainable by a human being, the last vestiges of the black mist were siphoned away, and Hina began to slow down. After a few seconds, she'd stopped spinning entirely. Despite the intensity and duration of her spinning, she didn't look dizzy at all. Instead, her brow was creased in concentration. Eventually she spoke. "You have some very…odd misfortunes Mr. Conagher. The place you come from must be very violent. And it seems like you've…died? Multiple times? That can't be right."

"Ah. That's, well, I can't really tell you about it. Sorry miss, you'll just have to live in curiosity," he said. Though if she knew about that, she was almost certainly actually capable of drawing out misfortunes or memories or something. Which meant Nitori had probably been telling the truth. He wished, not for the first time, that something scientifically unexplainable didn't happen every Halloween. It was enough to drive someone mad. "Thanks for removing them though, Miss. I do feel better."

Hina curtsied, still looking distracted. "Always happy to help." She turned to Nitori. "Could I talk to you for a second?"

Nitori looked at her, a bit confused. "I mean, sure, I guess. Just let me get Dell set up in my workshop and I'll be right with you."

Hina looked at Dell warily, then nodded. Nitori smiled and nodded at Dell, "All right then! Come on Dell, it's this way." She walked over to her house, then opened the door and stepped inside. As Dell was about to follow, she said, "Could you wait out there for a sec? Just gotta deactivate the cloaking field. Aaaaaand there!"

As she said that, there was a brief shimmer in the air, and then the area next to her house which had, until recently, just looked like a regular plain, was covered in scraps and bits of metal, and in the center of it was an elevator. Dell whistled. "That's some pretty impressive tech."

"Isn't it?" Nitori said excitedly, coming out of her house. "I set it up so people wouldn't try to steal from me when I'm away. It's also electrified, you know, just in case."

"Clever," Dell said. "Good thing I got permission then."

"Yep. The workshop's down that elevator there," she said, pointing to the elevator. "All this scrap is mostly just for show."

"Clients don't trust ya unless you got a whole bunch of metal lying around, huh? I've been there."

"Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a good source of metal, mind, but I wish I could organize it every once in a while," she said, as they walked towards the elevator. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I've got a whole bunch sorted downstairs, it'd just be nice if I could have them _all_ sorted instead of just lying around here, but that's the look you need for a 'professional' engineer." They reached the elevator. "Anyway, here you go," she said, hitting the button on the elevator. "Most of the stuff down there's organized by material, size, durability, and so on. I'm going to stay up here to talk to Hina, and I'll join you in a sec, but there's one very important thing I have to tell you." She paused for dramatic effect, then glared at him sharply. "Do not under any circumstances, touch my inventions or prototypes down there. They're in their own little marked off spaces, so I'm not going to take 'Oh, I didn't know' as an answer, ok? We clear Mr. Conagher?"

Dell put his hands up. "We're clear, we're clear. Jeez, for someone who was trying to steal one of my inventions earlier, you're rather protective of your own, aren't you?"

"That's just because I thought you were dead," Nitori said, unapologetically. "But since we're clear, down you go then." She pushed Dell into the elevator and hit a button inside it, then walked out as the doors closed.

As the elevator began to descend, Dell wondered what exactly he'd gotten himself into.


	8. Chapter 8: The Medic's Arrival

Hi everybody! As always, thanks so much for reading! As you may have guessed, it's the Medic's turn this time, and that means it's time to explain the only other accent in this story (the Demoman's being the first). Basically, the Medic's accent is made by two substitutions - a w is replaced by a v (except when the w is mostly silent, like "who"), and the th sound is replaced by either a z or a zh. The zh is used for distinguish words with accent from actual words, for instance to distinguish "zhen" ("then" with the accent) from "zen" (the actual word). I hope it's readable, and I hope you enjoy!

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><p>The Medic awoke face first in dirt, his glasses askew and cracked. "Ach, vunderful," he grumbled to himself, pushing himself off the ground. He felt around his face and encountered a few scratches, but none were very deep, and would heal pretty quickly, especially with the reconstituting particles running through his bloodstream. That had been a fun experiment, he remembered, when he first realized that the fluid in his medigun pack was constantly being aerated and absorbed through his pores. He took off his glasses and cleaned them as best he could on his shirt, taking care not to fragment the cracked lens any further. When they were as clean as he thought he could make them, he took a fresh pair out of his pocket, thankfully unbroken, and swapped them with the broken pair. Looking around, he was in the middle of a large forest of what looked like green poles. Looking back, he could see a small line of them were crushed or broken, presumably from his entrance. He could feel the bruises on his chest and sides, presumably from the impacts, and winced. Those would take a bit longer to heal than the scratches, unfortunately. Internal injuries always did. He couldn't see any of his teammates around, so he tried to shout for them, but there was no response.<p>

After he'd waited a few minutes for the worst of the pain to go away, he considered his options. He could stay where he was, which seemed like a poor decision, considering he was nowhere he recognized and had no idea when anyone would show up, or he could start wandering in a random direction and look for someone, which, while not the best decision, might at least take him to the edge of this forest and able to find some civilization. Having made up his mind, he decided to head in the direction of the broken poles. At the very least, he might come across the portal he'd fallen though and be able to get back. As he began walking, he thought he saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked towards it saw nothing. He shook his head and looked more intensely, but still saw nothing. He walked forward a bit, then spun quickly and looked at the spot he'd last seen the flash, only to be greeted by the endless sea of green poles and dirt. He concluded he must have imagined it and kept walking.

After a good fifteen minutes of walking, during which his wounds had mostly healed, he came across a small clearing, on one end of which was a line of broken green poles, and an indent in the dirt. As he approached the indent, he saw flecks of glass glint from inside it, and realized he had somehow come full circle, re-arriving at the spot he had crashed in to. He found this fascinating. He was certain he'd only traveled in one direction (as certain as he could be in such a featureless forest, at least), but had still ended up in the same place. This had a few implications. He might have been trapped in some sort of incredibly small magical plane, one which was completely circumscribable in only fifteen minutes, though he would have expected to find his teammates if that were the case. Or maybe there was some sort of portal system set up such that if you walked too far in any one direction you wound up that far in the opposite direction of your starting point, as if you'd traveled across the diameter of a circle. Or maybe the forest itself influenced one's mind, and made one believe they'd been travelling in one direction when they had not, which was perhaps the most interesting, because that would mean there was some sort of mind-influencing particle in the air that he could find and study. Or perhaps there was someone or something that could actually control the forest itself, shift the green poles behind him and in front of him such that the forest actually moved with him. This was also intriguing, because then that would imply the tree-like poles had some sort of intelligence, or that someone was capable of moving them very quickly, either of which would make them very interesting test subjects. He would have to find out. Remembering the flash of white he'd thought he'd seen, he decided to call out to the forest, hopefully drawing out whatever entity it might have been. "Hellllloooo! Is anyone out zere? Spirit of ze forest? I vould like to get out please!" He heard footsteps approach from behind him and spun around to face the spirit.

The spirit appeared to be a small girl in a pink dress, with short black hair through which sprouted two white protrusions, which looked, upon closer inspection, to be rabbit ears. Around her neck was a necklace, from which dangled a rendition of a carrot. "Greetings, traveler," she said, bowing low, which admittedly, didn't mean much when she was already so small. "I, the spirit of the forest, have heard your call. You wish to be led out of this place, do-what are you doing?" she said, turning her head to follow the medic, who was walking around her in a slow circle peering intently.

"Ah, how interesting," he said, taking a small notebook and pencil from his breast pocket and beginning to pace. "Zose protrusions seem to be actual, functional ears. Like zat of certain lagomorphs, but," he used his pencil to push back a bit of her hair, revealing a human ear, "human ears are also present. Vhat possible purpose could having both serve? Vhich set do you typically hear from?" he asked, suddenly ceasing his pacing and turning to face the spirit.

The spirit looked a bit worried. "Um, well, the lower pair," she said. "Look do you want to get out of here or-"

"Interesting, interesting," the medic said, tapping his chin. "So your physiology is mostly human, is zat because I am human? Do you take a form dependent on the species of creature you are conversing vith, or is it constant?"

The spirit looked at him warily. "It's typically pretty consistent, I guess. Look, if you don't want to get out of here I can just-"

"Really? Intriguing. I vould zink an embodiment of ze forest's shape vould be more dependent on vhat lived in the forest zan simply human-shaped, unless you vere brought into being solely to lead humans out of this place, in vhich case does humanity have ze ability to create spirits solely from vants or needs? Zis requires more research." His eyes were glowing with fervor. "So, do you remember how you came into existence, sp-" he began, before a voice interrupted.

"Teeeewwwwiiii," the voice said. "Teeewwwiii where are you? If you've gone around setting traps again Mistress Eirin will be mad!"

The spirit sighed and rested her head in one hand. "So much for being lucky," she grumbled. Then she looked up at the Medic. "Uh, so, look. I've gotta go do, uh, forest spirit things. Apparently you're doing fine here so you don't really need me," she said, starting to run back towards the sound of the voice.

"Vait, come back! Ve've barely scratched ze surface of zis," the Medic said, chasing after her. She was fast, and he was rapidly losing ground. He gritted his teeth and ran as fast as he could, his coat flapping behind him. Just as the distance between them was beginning to stabilize, he saw a shape move into his path, and before he could stop he crashed into it, and heard a shriek as they both tumbled to the ground.

"Ach, verdammt" he said, when he opened his eyes and found the spirit nowhere in sight. He tried to get up, only to have his hand find not the solid ground he was looking for, but some fabric he couldn't get a grip on, and he fell down once again. Looking over to his side, he saw that his hand was on the side of a woman in a blazer and a skirt, who also had rabbit ears on her head. She was groaning in pain, holding her head and her chest area. He immediately removed his hand and sat up. "Frau, can you hear me?" She didn't stop groaning. "Frau, look at me." She cracked open her eyes, which had red irises. He was momentarily distracted by the odd coloration, but decided that he could ask questions after she wasn't in pain. "Good, you can still understand me. All right, vhich area hurts ze most?" She pointed down towards her chest area with a clenched fist. "Right, excuse me for a second." He grabbed his medigun off his back with one hand and gently moved her hands out of the way. "Now, I'm not certain how zis vill vork on a forest spirit," at which point her face looked slightly quizzical through the pain, "but zere's a first time for everything, yes?" He pointed the medigun at her chest and pushed the activation lever forward. The healing particles rushed at her in a beam of light. She tensed and closed her eyes. The first particles touched her chest and began to spread over her body. Nearly instantly, her body relaxed, and her arms fell to her sides. The glow began to suffuse her body, glowing more brightly on two of her ribs, and the side of her head. "Zis is unusual," the Medic said to himself. "It's like ze healing particles actually have some sort of intelligence and seek out ze most injured parts of her body. Perhaps that is somehow a feature of ze forest spirits' physiology? Or perhaps that's how the particles react to non-human, non-animal targets?" After a couple seconds the glow died down and he pulled the lever back causing the beam fade away. The spirit opened her eyes and sat up, patting herself on the ribs and head.

"How did you do that?" she asked. "I must have had a few broken ribs and a fractured skull, that shouldn't have been so easy to fix."

A bit surprised at her knowledge of her own wounds, the Medic said, "Vell, zis machine," he said, gesturing towards his medigun, "can heal nearly any vound in a very brief time. In fact, once, it healed Heavy from nearly dead - his guts were lying about in ze dirt and everyzing - to scratchless in only fifteen seconds. Oh, he vent on such a rampage after zat." He chuckled.

"That's- I wouldn't believe you if I hadn't just experienced it," the spirit said. "Even master can't usually manage that. Or at least, she could, but usually there's unintended side…effects." She looked at him, worried. "There's not going to be any side effects are there?"

"Vell I've never tried it on a spirit before, or at least one of your physiology, so I can't say for sure. To be honest, I'm anxious to find out," the Medic said.

The spirit groaned. "Not _more_ side effects. I've had about as much of those as I can stand. I mean, I haven't even fully recovered from the brittle bones caused by the last one Master tested on me."

"Who is zis 'Master'? Do you spirits answer to someone?"

She looked at him, confused. "Well firstly, I'm not a spirit. I'm a rabbit. A rabbit youkai anyway. And secondly, I work for Master Eirin, who lives here making medicine. And testing medicine. On me." She sighed. "And while I understand the necessity of it, it doesn't make it any easier."

"You're just rabbits?" the Medic asked, sounding doubtful. "You certainly have more human features than a typical rabbit. Is it some sort of magic?"

The rabbit woman frowned. "I guess you could call it that. I mean, youkai are somewhat magical by definition, and it allows us to change forms if certain conditions are met. At least, that's what Master Eirin says her research has led her to believe."

The Medic's eyes lit up. "Zis Master of yours has done research into it? Interesting. I vould like to meet this 'Eirin.' The ability to change form would be rather useful, vouldn't you zink?"

"Well, I was supposed to find Tewi. She's slacking off again," the woman sighed. "Probably trying to rip off some poor lost traveler or something. But after I catch her, I can lead you back to the clinic."

The Medic tsked in frustration. "Could you not just point me in the direction of ze clinic?"

The rabbit woman laughed. "How long have you been in this forest? Even if I pointed you in the right direction, you wouldn't get there, you'd get lost within seconds. Humans, except for those with large magical capabilities, can't navigate this forest at all. You need to have a sense of where the forest will seem to shift, which these," she said, pointing towards her ears, "help with."

"Zey do? Interesting," the Medic said, hand on his chin. "How do they-" he began, before the woman interrupted.

"I can try to explain later, but I've really got to find Tewi," she said, shaking her head.

The Medic grumbled under his breath. "Fine, fine. Is zere some vay I could help speed up zis search zen?"

"Well, did you see another rabbit youkai in a pink dress and short black hair run by this way?"

The Medic snorted. "I was chasing after zat so-called 'spirit' vhen I crashed into you."

The woman sighed. "I suppose that would explain why you thought we were spirits. I wish I knew what she was thinking sometimes."

"In any case," the Medic said, raising an arm and pointing in the direction where he'd last seen Tewi run off. "She ran zat vay, last I saw."

The woman nodded, then stretched a bit, cracking her joints. "Thanks. I'll get back as soon as I can. Until then, don't move, or I might have trouble finding you again."

The Medic waved his hand irritably, "Yes, yes. Go find your friend." She began to run off into the distance. "And if you feel any side effects let me know," he yelled after her.

A short time later, after the medic had managed to dissect one of the green poles around and found that while they couldn't be healed by the medigun, they did start to glow if he focused the beam on them, an effect which lasted for quite a while, the woman returned, scratched and slightly limping.

"Ah, Frau," the Medic said, waving. "Hello again. Look vhat I've discovered!" He held up a bit of the glowing green pole.

The woman blinked. "How did you-no, scratch that, _why_ did you make the bamboo glow?"

"Is zat vhat it's called? I vas testing to see if zis," he hefted his medigun, "vould vork on it. You said earlier that this 'bamboo' is somevhat magical, and that you vere magical, so I wondered if there would be some sort of connection between ability to be healed and magical capability. Alas, zere vas not, but it does glow rather spectacularly now! And in different colors, as vell." He gestured behind him to reveal ten segments of cut bamboo, each glowing a different color.

She looked at him, her face carefully blank. "That's…great. Just great. So, do you want to go meet Master Eirin now, or are you too busy with your glowing bamboo?"

"Oh, I'm quite ready," he said, walking over. "I believe I've learned about as much as I can from zis bamboo."

"Ah. I'm sure you learned a great deal," she said, before turning and starting to limp away.

"Oh, did you experience any side effects?" he asked as he ran after her, pencil in hand.

"Thankfully no."

"Oh…zat's disappointing," he said. "Ah vell, can't expect to learn from every trial." He pointed his medigun at her limping leg and pushed the lever forward. She stopped limping immediately.

She turned around and looked at him angrily. "You know, you could have asked my permission before-" she paused, then hung her head, "Oh who am I kidding. No one asks my permission to do anything around here. I just hope there aren't any long-term side effects to that thing." She turned back around and walked into the forest. The Medic followed, hoping the opposite. Where was the fun in not getting any interesting data, anyway?


	9. Chapter 9: The Sniper's Arrival

Hi everybody! Time for the Sniper's part! We've almost hit the last "Arrival" chapter, which is pretty exciting, at least to me!

Thanks to everybody for reading, and especially to those of you who've reviewed, favorited, or followed! The fact you care enough about the story to leave feedback and/or indicate you want to read more warms my heart, so thanks so much.

But even if you don't review, favorite, etc., the fact that you're reading this story at all is why I keep writing, so thanks to all of you.

Ok, it may be getting old to say that every time, but it's true. Anyway, on with the story

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><p>The Sniper came to in a bush that had, until recently, been very well maintained and cultivated. Unfortunately, Sniper's descent had caused a rather large hole in the hedge, scattering flower petals and broken branches everywhere. He groaned and pulled himself out of the hedge, noticing the wide variety of cuts and bruises on his arms and legs, and he plucked a thorn out of his back. "At least this isn't the worst place I've slept in," he thought to himself. "Still, if I ever find Soldier, I'm gonna kill him." Looking around, he saw that he was in a garden of some sort, with lots of different flowers and plants, trimmed into intricate and fantastic shapes. The one he had crashed into looked like a rose bush shaped like a small girl with wings, though now, due to his rather dynamic entrance, she was missing a leg. As he watched, the whole thing slowly toppled over and slammed into the ground with a loud crunch and a puff of rose petals. He winced in sympathy to the gardener, making a mental reminder to apologize to them if he ever had the chance. He began walking towards a building in the distance, hoping to find someone who would know where he was.<p>

As he approached, he found himself staring at the sheer size of the building, which was larger than any he'd ever seen. It was at least three stories tall, with a clock tower and some parapets, and it looked like there had to be at least twenty rooms per floor. What few windows there were seemed to be dyed a deep red, creating a foreboding atmosphere, and he wondered briefly if he'd stepped into an old monster movie. Shaking his head, he tried to banish such unprofessional thoughts from his mind and knocked on the door.

As he was about to knock for the third time, the door swung open, revealing a woman with silver hair and a stern expression, dressed in a maid outfit. "Meiling, what was with that noise earlieeerrrr…" she began, before coming face to face with the bloodied, thorn-studded man in a vampire hunter costume, destroyed topiary behind him.

In retrospect, Sniper thought, as he saw the woman's stunned expression, he might have wanted to clean up a bit first. "G'day miss," he said, doffing his hat, "I seem to require some assistance, could you help me?" This seemed to bring the maid out of her shock, and before he could blink, he felt himself pinned to the wall, a dagger at his throat. He was really starting to get sick of having knives in close proximity to his face, he thought, as the scar on his cheek twinged slightly. "Ah. If this is about the hedge, I am sorry about that, didn't really have a choice in the matter, y'see."

The maid pressed the dagger closer to his throat and whispered to him, "I don't care about Meiling's damn topiary, just tell me who sent you."

"Look, I think you've misunderstood something here-"

She pressed her dagger closer to his neck. "Who. Sent. You."

Sniper decided that since he really didn't seem to have the upper hand in this, he should probably just tell the truth. Or as close to it as he could. "Technically, Merasmus sent me."

"Never heard of him. Why does he want Lady Scarlet dead?"

"Who?"

"Oh, don't play dumb with me." She reached out and took the stakes from his front pocket. "You obviously came prepared."

"What, those? They're just part of my Halloween costume. My rifle's more dangerous than those."

"Halloween costume. No way I'm buying that. Especially since it's September."

The Sniper tried to turn his head, but the knife pressed against his throat, causing a small cut just under his chin. His ability to be polite was wearing thin. "It's October 31rst, you madwoman! Besides, why would I be dressed up like this if it wasn't? What would I possibly be doing? Hunting werewolves, vampires? That's-" he remembered The Horseless Headless Horseman, Monoculus, and even Merasmus, and paused. He rested his head against the wall. "Please tell me vampires and werewolves don't exist. I've already had to accept ghosts and wizards and giant floating eyeballs, my skepticism's been pushed to the limit."

"Giant floating eyeballs?" the maid said.

"Long story, don't ask."

The maid paused for a bit, then loosened her grip somewhat and flipped him around. "Ok I'll admit that seemed genuine, but just in case you're a very good liar, I'm going to take you to meet someone who may be able to verify your story. Will you come quietly, or do I need to bind you?" she asked, holding a rope that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"So you're not going to answer my question then?"

"Not yet. First we'll see if they need answering."

The Sniper sighed. "Fine, fine. I doubt I could get away from you anyway."

The maid smiled slightly. "I don't think you could either." She stood back and gestured inside. "After you." The Sniper walked inside and his eyes widened. The entrance was gigantic, even larger than he would have imagined it could be. It mostly consisted of a long red carpet leading up to an ornate staircase, with hallways expanding out in every direction. Hanging above the carpet was an enormous, sparkling chandelier, the candles of which were lit, despite the fact that it was daytime out. And despite the size of both the room and the chandelier, there was no sign of dust or melted wax anywhere. The maid entered behind him and closed the doors silently. She had a slight smile on her face. "Never been in a mansion before?"

"No, not really. Well there was one, but it was haunted by an axe-murdering ghost and was in disrepair, so it doesn't really count," he said, remembering the Horseless Headless Horsemann. "Still," he said, letting out a whistle, "It's impressively clean, for a space so large."

"Why thank you," the maid said. "I try." She gestured down one of the ground floor hallways. "It's this way." The Sniper nodded and began walking down the hallway. It seemed to stretch on for longer than it should have been able to.

Along the walk, the Sniper was trying to come up with a plan for what he could do to escape if this "lie detector" didn't believe him. Obviously, this woman had some sort of power to move near-instantaneously, as the incident at the door had proven. That would make her difficult to take out, as she'd have to be taken completely by surprise. Unfortunately, she was already suspicious of him, so taking her by surprise would be near impossible. At least he wasn't bound, but that was small consolation. Still, he figured he might get a chance when this maid was facing the "lie detector," if necessary, as she would probably be distracted looking at the results. If that failed, he could try predicting where she would show up, but that would be more difficult.

As the Sniper had been trying to come up with a plan, they'd made their way to a large pair of doors. As they approached, some yells and coughs could be heard from inside. The maid frowned.

"Is it normally this loud?" the Sniper asked.

"No. No it isn't. Wait here for a second please," the maid disappeared, and the doors were suddenly open, allowing the Sniper to hear what was being shouted.

"Get back here, Marisa," a voice was saying, then started coughing.

"You can have 'em back when I'm dead," a voice replied. "Ack! Sakuya! When'd you get here? Wait, stupid question."

"Marisa," said a voice he recognized as the maid's. He guessed her name was Sakuya then. "Will you ever give up?"

"Ha, no way! There's too much awesome stuff here," said the second voice, which he supposed was Marisa. It seemed to be getting closer. "And I'll see you lateeeerrrrr," the voice said, getting louder. Suddenly Sakuya was right next to him and attempting to close the doors, but before she could, a girl dressed in black and white with a witch's hat zoomed out.

"Damn it," Sakuya said. "Not again…"

The Sniper figured if he helped them, they might be more willing to let him go, so he slung his sniper rifle off his back and took aim at the rapidly disappearing woman's transport, which appeared to be a broom. "Gotcha, you little hooligan," he whispered, and fired.

Instead of a bullet, as the Sniper expected, the rifle fired what looked like a laser beam, sort of like what his Machina fired. The beam hit the broom's handle dead on, and it began to spin out of the girl's control. She managed to get out a "WHOA," before she crashed into a wall and plummeted to the floor. As the Sniper was busy inspecting his rifle to find out why it had suddenly fired a laser (personally, he suspected Engie might have been trying to modify it without his permission again), Sakuya walked over to the girl on the ground and pulled her upright by the shoulder. The girl was struggling.

"That wasn't fair," she was yelling. "You can't fire danmaku at me once I get out the doors, we agreed on that after the truce!"

Sakuya shrugged. "I didn't." She gestured back towards the Sniper, who was inspecting his rifle, having attempted to eject the spent shell to find there was no bullet loaded in the first place. "He did."

The girl looked at him, as he was peering into the chamber. Her eyes widened briefly, then narrowed again. "Who's he then?"

Sakuya frowned. "I really don't know. I thought he might be an assassin targeting Lady Remilia, but I'm not so sure now." Her expression softened into a slight grin. "But in any case, since he stopped you, I'll be taking these back," she said, picking up the bag Marisa had been stuffing books into.

Marisa sighed. "Fiiiiiine. I'll just have to borrow them again later." Sakuya rolled her eyes at this. "But now I'm curious. You don't mind if I go talk to him a bit, do you?"

Sakuya raised an eyebrow. "Curious, huh? Well as long as you don't let him escape or anything, I'm fine with it." Marisa began walking towards the Sniper, while Sakuya vanished, presumably to go put the books back into their rightful places in the library.

"Hey, you," she called out. The Sniper looked up from his gun, still puzzled. "What'd you do that for? Those were some super amazing books, and I woulda gotten away with 'em too, if it wasn't for your meddling."

"So sorry to have foiled your escape then, Miss," the Sniper said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Next time I see a robbery in progress I'll be sure to just stand idly by."

"Robbery? That wasn't a robbery, I was just borrowing," she replied, waving a hand.

The Sniper raised an eyebrow. "Borrowing usually doesn't result in people yelling at you," he said. "Well, unless you borrow from Soldier, but he's kinda…crazy."

"Nah, we made a whole agreement and everything. If I make it out the doors I'm home free. But anyway," she said, looking at him suspiciously. "Why'd you go after me if you know Sakuya thinks you're dangerous? Shouldn't you be helping me out?"

The Sniper shrugged. "Well, helping you out wouldn't really help me, cause you'd just fly away and I'm left here holding the bag. Helping them out endears me to them a bit. Now that I've done them a favor, hopefully they won't try to kill me."

Marisa looked irritated. "I guess that's true, but…maaaaan," she said, rubbing her head in irritation. Then she pointed at him "If I hadn't thought I was safe, you'd never have been able to hit me."

"Guess it's lucky for me you thought you were safe then," the Sniper said. "And lucky for you I didn't end up firing a bullet," he said, gesturing towards the rifle. "I imagine splinters would hurt, and I doubt you'd want your broom damaged." He frowned, looking puzzled. "Though I don't really know why it fired that laser-like thing."

Marisa frowned. "A bullet? Like a danmaku bullet?"

"Danmaku? I've never heard of that brand. No, it was just a good old Mann Co. bullet. I'm contractually obligated to use those."

"Whaaaat?" Marisa yelled, causing the Sniper to cover his ears. "How can you not know about danmaku?"

"Bloody hell woman, what'd you have to yell for?"

"But if you don't know about danmaku," Marisa said, looking at him with wide eyes, "you must be from outside Gensokyou!"

"Well, considering I've never heard about Gensokyou, I'd guess you're right about that. Is that where I am?"

"Yep! I guess I'll be the first to officially welcome you, so welcome to Gensokyou," she said, sticking out her hand.

The Sniper shook it. "Well thanks then, Ms. Marisa, was it?"

"Yep," Marisa said cheerfully. She clapped her hands together. "I have so many questions for you. Like, like…what's magic like on the outside!"

"Magic? I don't-" before the Sniper could finish, Sakuya reappeared beside them.

"My apologies. Explaining the situation took a bit longer than I expected. Are you ready then, sir?"

"Awwww Sakuyaaa," Marisa said, pouting. "I was just about to get answers about what sort of magic is outside!"

"I'm sure you'll get a chance after this. Assuming," she looked pointedly at the Sniper, "our friend here is telling the truth."

The Sniper rolled his eyes, and considered his options. Given that his gun no longer shot bullets, but rather strange lasers that, judging from the lack of injury to Marisa's broom, didn't do any physical damage, his plan to take out Sakuya seemed impossible at this point. He had to hope that they'd recognize that he was telling the truth, or things would likely get very unpleasant for him very quickly. He sighed. "Well, let's get this over with then, shall we?"


	10. Chapter 10: The Spy's Arrival

Hey everybody! It's time for the...second to last arrival chapter. Yeah, I know seems like this would be the last one, but there's going to be one more person we're going to see arriving.

With regards to the Spy's comments about the "hip-e" movement and Buddhist monks, keep in mind that he's from the TF2 universe, where Australia is full of moustachioed men and women, New Zealand's the equivalent of Atlantis, and Nicola Tesla, Fu Manchu, and a whole bunch of others were part of the 1800's RED and BLU teams. I assumed their world's history would be pretty different from ours.

EDIT: Game2002 pointed out (correctly) that Shou doesn't actually have tiger ears, at least in official art. My response to that was initially along the lines of "Curse you, need for accuracy with source material!" but I realized that I've actually departed from canon with regards to things like that before (like with the rabbit ears+human ears in the Medic's chapter), so I calmed down a bit. However, it has led me to the decision that (at least in the Gensokyou of the story I'm writing) Shou's tiger ears show up as sort of a symptom of her anger. Essentially, the more angry (and less in control) she becomes, the more tiger-like her appearance becomes, such as ears/whiskers showing up. Hopefully that works for you all as well (it also prevents me from having to rewrite that section, which is only a happy coincidence from this newly created bit of story canon, I assure you). But thanks for pointing that out Game2002!

As always, thanks so much for reading!

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><p>The Spy woke up in a bed. Since he didn't know whose bed it was, and the last thing he remembered was being taken through the strange portal Merasmus had created, he decided to remain silent and pretend to be asleep. A spy's greatest asset is his ability to gather information, after all, and people tend to let their guard down around people they believe to be asleep. The Spy himself knew better, of course, but he doubted his captors (they had to be captors, he reasoned, because they had taken him against his will even if, admittedly, he couldn't really have voiced his will while unconscious). Calming his mind, he focused on letting his senses take in all the information they could. The sheets felt heavy, but also soft. They were probably expertly made, meaning whoever had captured him was either an excellent seamstress, or could afford to hire one. In contrast to that, he could barely feel a mattress beneath himself, instead feeling only a straw mat. That seemed to indicate the former of the two options presented by the blanket. Inhaling deeply, he caught the scent of incense burning. That probably meant he was either in a place of religious worship or, and he shuddered to think it, he'd been captured by some new-agers (The new-agers were, as far as the Spy could figure out, a group of people who were following in the footsteps of the "hip-e" movement from the early 1920's, who had decided in the aftermath of the first world war that recreational drugs and flowers were much better time than reliving the traumatic memories they had, and as such went around smoking garden weeds and throwing flowers at people. How exactly the new-agers had turned this behavior into burning incense and talking at length about the lovely healing properties of certain stones escaped him, but they always claimed the "hip-es" as an inspiration, so he took their word for it.) Luckily, the sounds of people rushing back and forth and constant jovial yelling convinced him that it was almost certainly the religious institution, as new-agers rarely had that kind of energy. From this, he concluded that his captors wanted him to believe that he was in some sort of temple for a religion that favored frugality, so he guessed Buddhism, considering his last known location. Of course, since that's what they wanted him to believe, he concluded that he was in a secret facility designed to gather information from people like him by making them feel relatively at ease, so they'd let down their guard. Childs play, really.<p>

As he came to that conclusion, he heard the sound of two sets of footsteps approaching, speaking to each other amiably. A door opened and he felt some cool air rush in.

"Hello Byakuren-sama," one voice said, sounding cheerful. There was a clatter. "I brought you some food, and a bit for him in case he'd woken up, but I guess he hasn't…"

"Oh that's fine," said a voice to his side. He cursed himself silently for not realizing there was someone in the room with him. He wondered how he could have missed her breathing. "He seems to still be unconscious, poor man."

"Well, he did fall from the sky right into the training grounds," said a third voice coming from near the first one. "I wouldn't be surprised if he was out for days, fall like that. Hell, I'm surprised he wasn't dead on impact."

"Minamitsu!" the voice that the spy assumed was Byakuren said, admonishingly.

"I know, I know. Sorry for my language and negativity Byakuren, but I've seen people fall from lesser heights into _water_ and die before. It's just surprising s'all," the third voice, which now seemed to belong to this "Minamitsu," replied.

The Spy silently thanked his training for keeping him alive.

"That's true," said the first voice. "Very lucky for him he survived. Still I wonder where he came from. He definitely looks…odd, don't you think?" The Spy suppressed a frown. He wasn't sure he liked this woman. "I mean, wearing a fancy suit like that and then putting a face cover on? Seems suspicious to me."

"We shouldn't judge people based solely on appearances, Shou," Byakuren said.

"Well, now that you've taken it off him, his 'appearance' is a lot better," Minamitsu said, chuckling.

"I-I didn't want him to suffocate," Byakuren said, stammering slightly, but the Spy wasn't paying attention. They'd removed his balaclava? He realized he could no longer feel the familiar scratchiness of it, and instead could feel a gentle breeze on his skin. He leapt up, grabbing his third hidden knife (the other two had seemingly been taken from him), reaching to where he thought this Byakuren was, and was rewarded with a small gasp. He put the knife to her throat and put her between him and the two other people at the entrance.

"Hello," he said, as politely as he could. "Sorry about this, but I really can't have people seeing my face, it's part of my business, you know. In any other situation I would be pleased to wake up to you three lovely women, I'm sure. Unfortunately I woke up in this one." As he'd been speaking, the two women at the entrance had taken out their weapons, a spear and what looked like a ladle. The spy smiled grimly, his suspicions that this had merely been the semblance of a religious institution confirmed. After all, monks would probably never carry such weapons as a spear and a…well…ladle, which he guessed probably had some sort of special function. Monks would have had the traditional submachine guns that became the mark of the Buddhist religion since the great schism and reformation of 1902. The one with the spear growled.

Byakuren raised her hands. "There's no need for violence. I'm sure that he won't harm any of us."

The Spy looked at her incredulously. "I would assume that the knife I currently have pressed to your throat would indicate otherwise, were I in your position."

She waved a hand dismissively. "You misunderstand. I didn't mean you have no intention of hurting us, I simply meant you would be unable to do so."

The Spy raised an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

"Our feminine wiles," she replied, smiling innocently. The one that had growled at him earlier groaned, while the one with the ladle smirked a bit.

"So you think I won't kill you because you're women? That's a rather large thing to assume about someone you've just met. Inaccurate, too," he said, pressing his knife closer to her throat. "I cannot allow people to see my face, you see, no matter their sex, race, or age."

"Even if that age is over five hundred?" she asked, while the other two looked at him with disgust. "Besides, I don't believe you for one second. "

"Oh? Well that's your belief, not mine. Still, since I'd rather not have to kill everyone until I found my mask, would you hand it over?"

Byakuren sighed dramatically. "Very well, very well. Here's your mask," she said, pulling it out from a pocket and handing it to him. "I don't know why you want it anyway, you look much better without it."

He gave her a withering look. "I regret to inform you that five hundred year old women aren't my type. Though I must admit you look rather well preserved for someone so old."

Her eyebrow twitched. "Indeed? I'm afraid you misinterpreted my point." She sighed. "But I'm getting off topic. After all, if your plan was to kill us you would have used the element of surprise, I should think. As you haven't, I don't think you plan on killing us at all." The Spy seemed to be about to speak, when she interrupted. "And believe me, I have met many who have truly wished to kill me, and you don't act like one of them. So would you kindly put the knife down so we can talk civilly?"

The Spy cursed under his breath. She was perceptive, this one. She knew he would prefer not to kill someone if they weren't the instigators. Or if he wasn't getting paid. Still, if he could make them angry enough, he could get away and the problem of his face being seen would be resolved. He looked at the two across from him, with their weapons drawn, and decided the one with the spear was his best bet. He turned towards her. "You haven't talked much. Anything you'd like to add?" She looked a bit startled that he'd decided to talk to her.

"Uh, well if anything happens to Byakuren, I'll kill you."

"Oh how original. Never heard that one before. Besides, make threats you can keep, will you? You can barely hold that spear anyway." He paused, looking at her more closely. "What are those things on your head?" he said blankly.

"What, my ears?"

"Those are tiger ears."

"What's your point?"

"Wait so you seriously," he began to chuckle, "believe you're a tiger? Pffhahahahaha, that's so…so stupid," He leaned on Byakuren's shoulder laughing, and took out his pocketwatch. The tiger woman began to growl. This set the spy off again, "You growl too? Ah ha ha ha wow, you're really into it. But I'm afraid you make a terrible tiger, my dear. Maybe, if you try really hard, you could pass for a little pussyca-"

"Shou, don't-" Byakuren shouted, but it was too late. The tiger woman growled and lunged forward. He smiled briefly before the spear penetrated his head. In actuality, the force had simply triggered his dead ringer, which pushed him backwards and cloaked him, while the replacement body became skewered on the spear. The tiger woman, who seemed to be called Shou, shuddered and dropped her spear, causing both it and the body to crumple to the floor in a heap.

"I didn't…I didn't mean to, I just got so angry and I-" she stammered.

"Hey, I was going to if you didn't," Minamitsu said. "The hell was that guy's problem?"

"Murasa," Byakuren said admonishingly. The ghost sighed and lowered her head. Byakuren walked over to Shou and pulled her into a hug. "It's ok Shou. He was provoking you. I can't imagine why, but he wanted you to attack him."

"Tha-that doesn't make it ok," the tiger youkai said, shivering.

The Spy chose this time to sneak out of the door and get as far away from this place as he could. He didn't particularly like causing pain to women, but certainly this was better than having to kill them. In addition, they would report back to whomever they were working for that he was dead, so he'd probably be home free. He walked down the wooden halls, trying to find a place he could make a new disguise. As he passed by a large courtyard, he saw a group of people (though some looked as if they had animal ears like the woman from earlier), dressed in white robes and praying, which would make for a perfect disguise. He glanced at his dead ringer to find it almost out of charge, so he ducked into the first room he found and decloaked. He didn't see anyone around, so he quickly took out one of his blank masks and sketched a picture of the most generic-looking man he could think of. On the back of the mask, he wrote a description of the clothing he'd seen the people in the courtyard wearing, white robes with wooden sandals. He put it on and waited until he saw the little puff of smoke that meant he'd successfully disguised. Grinning to himself, he opened the door and started walking nonchalantly around, looking for an exit.

As he walked, he found that the place really looked like a religious monastery, whoever had captured him had wanted it to look as realistic as possible. There had to be dozens of "worshippers," most in the act of praying, or meditating, or simply talking animatedly with one another. He'd stopped to listen to one of the conversations, and it had been about another temple that had opened up nearby and wondering how to deal with the tensions that arose because of it. The Spy was amazed at the amount of dedication these people had to their story, to act as if it were true even if everyone around was in on it. It was rare to have spies that good, let alone so many of them. He shook his head. It wasn't the time for such distractions.

Eventually, through subtle inquiries (luckily, no one thought he looked out of place), he found his way to the entrance. As he was about to leave, a hand landed on his shoulder. He looked back to find himself staring at a young girl with blonde hair, seemingly carrying a sickle in her left hand. He tried to keep his expression as calm as possible. "Yes?"

"Where're you going? We've gotta help set up for the festival."

The Spy closed his eyes, wondering if this was some kind of test or trick, to determine if anyone was trying to infiltrate their facility. He hadn't seen anyone doing any preparations when he'd been walking the grounds, but it was more likely that this first request would be accurate, so that they could get him alone and ask more questions. He took a deep breath. "Well, I was just gonna go out for a breath of fresh air, but if you insist. What do you need help with?"

The girl looked at him appraisingly, before her mouth widened into an evil grin. "That settles that then. Who are you really?"


	11. Chapter 11: Unknown's Arrival Report

Well, I did say there was going to be one more "arrival-like" chapter. I'm not entirely sure why I'm trying to keep who this is a secret, because if you know about semi-recent TF2 it's probably pretty clear, but hey, why not. Also, it's mostly in first-person, which is a bit odd, but it fits with what this is supposed to be.

And as always, thanks for reading, you wonderful people you.

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><p>Report Begins:<p>

During reconnaissance of RED team, the subject known as Merasmus appeared, instigating a fight. The subject appeared to be losing for quite some time, but then created an anomaly, resulting in the members of RED team ceasing to exist in this plane, after which he was joined by an unknown female. The woman created another anomaly and she and the subject stepped into it.

In accordance with protocol 82.94e, I endeavored to follow undetected. Before the anomaly dissipated, I entered it.

Upon entering, I was rendered unconscious, though, due to emergency backup functions, cloaking was instantaneously activated, and no entity seemed to have noticed my presence when I once again regained consciousness. However,

I was informed upon regaining consciousness that numerous issues had arisen internally, possibly causing erratic behavior and/or thoughts. These include the execution of emergency protocol 13.66b, which would normally have applied in this situation. Attempts to comply were met with internal resistance and loss of arm control, and attempted circumventions of protocol to achieve the desired result were unsuccessful.

As a result, I decided to attempt to continue observations, as if the anomaly never occurred, as following those protocols did not cause resistance. After coming to this conclusion, I observed my surroundings. There were no signs of RED team members, nor and sign of the subject Merasmus and the unknown woman. I appeared to be in a cave of some sort, though not a naturally occurring one. The stone was shaped in such a way that there is a 98% chance of the cave being created by stone masons, though the roughness of the workmanship would suggest ones without access to modern tools. Other items of interest follow: there appeared to be a table made of the stone, which was covered by a piece of thin, tasseled fabric. On top of the fabric rested a small vase of flowers, as well as a small jar filled with incense. Closer inspection revealed the incense had been lit at least an hour earlier, judging by the size and burn marks on the sticks. Looking at the ceiling revealed an intricate web of strands of rope, with large, jagged pieces of paper hanging from the ropes at various intervals. A large bookshelf sat in a corner of the room, filled with books of varying titles. An unusually large proportion of them had a word relating to magic in their title.

After observing the room, I entered a corridor from which light came. After entering the corridor, it became apparent that the light came from candles encased in paper containers (apparently ignoring the flammability of the material, but considering the lack of any burnt remains on the floor, I concluded that the paper was somehow rendered fire-proof). The web on the ceiling continued out into this corridor as well, stretching down the length of it. Following the corridor led to a set of stairs carved into the rock. Ascending the staircase led to what appeared to be a dead end, however, observation of the portion of the ceiling around which the web of rope and paper formed a circle revealed it to be a different substance than the surrounding walls. Applying force to that portion of the ceiling caused it to shift. Pushing it aside revealed a view of the sun and sky, slightly obscured by trees. The trees were not native to Kong King, so the anomaly had, at the very least, shifted me in space. After climbing out of the hole and placing the rock back over it, my suspicions were confirmed, as I found myself in a clearing in a grove of trees. Observation revealed this trees to be Japanese cedars, which were thought to be extinct after the great Japanese deforestation in 1946, as part of a means to counteract the great American table shortage of 1945. In addition, a stream wound through the trees, flowing towards an unknown destination. Following the stream led to a small lake, in which there appeared to be a large turtle in the center. However, inspection revealed it to be sleeping, and therefore not a threat. On the other side of the lake, a portion of a wooden building was observed, and, taking care not to wake the turtle or enter the water, I approached it, as, if the cloaking technology held, I could learn more about the land by observing the people of the area.

The building, when I reached it, appeared to be made almost entirely of wood. A large walkway circumnavigated the building, with at least one sliding door on each side. Circling towards the front entrance, I began to pick up the very faint sound of a distant conversation. After passing a well, I came upon a large courtyard, with a wooden arch on the opposite end, apparently a Japanese Torii gate. The courtyard itself was empty, save for a small shack off on the side. The conversation I'd been hearing seemed to be coming from there, so I headed towards it, passing by an offering box (which seemed to be empty). As I approached, I started to be able to understand the conversation (my default language had apparently been affected by the errors and set to Japanese).

Transcript Follows:

"-you appreciate it." (an unrecognized female voice)

"We do Reimu, we really do!" (a voice belonging to the unknown female last seen with Merasmus)

"Yes, we truly do Miss Hakurei," (a voice belonging to Merasmus) A bump was heard, followed by a short swear from Merasmus. "Is there any chance we could move this conversation to somewhere with more…um…head room?"

"No." (voice previously recognized as 'Reimu')

A sigh. "Just take off the hat, Mer." (unknown woman)

"What? You know I can't do that! This hat is-" (Merasmus)

"What makes you you, yes I know. But it wouldn't hurt to take it off just for this conversation, would it?" (unknown woman)

A grumble.

"What was that, Mer?" (unknown woman)

"Nothing, nothing." (Merasmus) A popping noise. "Ugh, I feel naked without my hat."

"Oh, you look better without it." (unknown woman)

"Well I can't say whether the same would apply to you, considering you've never taken it off." (Merasmus) A slapping noise, followed by the unknown woman's laughter.

"Ha, and at this rate you probably never will." (unknown woman) Sounds of Merasmus struggling happen throughout. A polite cough. Sounds of struggling stop. "Oh, uh, sorry Reimu."

"It's alright. Just thought you'd want to get the conversation over quickly, so there is less chance of being caught before preparations are ready." (Reimu)

"Yeah, that's a good point. Sorry, Reimu." (unknown woman)

"As I said, it is alright. Now, you are planning to have it here, correct?" (Reimu)

"Actually, we were going to go to the villa-" a loud whacking noise, followed by pained laughter. "I was just kidding, Reimu." (unknown woman) A couple of short laughs from Merasmus, followed by a pained grunt. "It's not nice to laugh at a woman in pain, Mer."

"Well, if you're planning to have it here, I would like the payment of the gold first." (Reimu)

Sounding pained: "It's not gold, Miss Hakurei, it's Australium. It's worth far more, and is nearly impossible to alchemize, unlike gold. It's also what made Australia the country of muscle-bound, mustache-sporting men and women that it is tod-aaaaand you don't really care, do you?" (Merasmus)

"Well, the fact that it's more expensive caught my attention, but no, not really." (Reimu)

A sigh. "Well, at the very least, listen to this: don't touch it with your bare hands. It has some…strange properties." (Merasmus)

"Like what?" (Reimu)

"Well, it can turn people into gold-colored statues in certain situations. It can also cause people who touch it to become, well, Australian-like. And I don't think you want a luxurious mustache growing on your face, do you?" (Merasmus)

"Aww, why'd you have to tell her about that? I wanted to see it." (Unknown woman) A slight flicking sound, followed by an exclamation of pain from the unknown woman.

"I'm sure you did. Thank you for warning me." (Reimu)

"It's not an issue is it? You'll still accept it?" (Merasmus)

"Yes." (Reimu)

A relieved sigh.

Transcript ends

It was at this point that I believe I must have somehow activated a form of detection device, as the female known as Reimu suddenly said, "Someone's here. Leave now."

This was followed by a scrambling noise, and then the door slammed open, revealing a young girl dressed in a dress with white sleeves, a yellow scarf around her neck, and a red bow in her hair. She held a strange stick, with a bit of jagged white paper, like a smaller version of those seen in the cavern I had woken up in (lookup revealed it to be a Japanese gohei). She brandished it like it was weapon as she looked around. After she found there was no one in sight (as my cloaking was still working), she seemed to relax slightly.

"Nitori? Are you testing your cloaking devices in my shrine again? Because you remember what happened last time, don't you?" she said. Pausing, she slumped her shoulders. Then, with a speed I would not have expected from one so small, she whirled directly to face me, holding the gohei just under my nose. "And I do have ways of detecting your camouflage suit, you know."

As it was using up valuable resources and apparently wasn't achieving the desired effect, I deactivated by cloaking field.

The girl known as Reimu looked surprised for a brief instant before frowning. "You're a new one, aren't you?"

"Define 'new,'" I replied, confused. "What is new to you may be old to me or vice versa."

"I meant this is the first time we've met."

"Then yes."

"What are you then? Related to Medicine at all, or are you the product of some sort of collaboration between Alice and Nitori?"

"I am not related to the concept of healing people, nor do I know of an 'Alice' or 'Nitori.'"

She sighed. "Where are you from then?"  
>"I cannot tell you that," I replied, in accordance with protocol 51.73n.<p>

"Can't or won't?" she asked.

"Can't."

She smiled slightly. "All right then. Were you listening to our conversation earlier?"

"Some of it, yes."

"That's unfortunate for us both then," she said pulling her gohei back. "I'm afraid I'll have to keep you occupied you until the preparations are complete."

"Occupied?" I asked.

"Yes, occupied," she said, swinging the gohei in an arc. As she swung, an arc of strange glowing orbs materialized, heading directly towards me. Having no idea what the orbs did, I was planning to let them hit me and determine their effect, however, I involuntarily moved in such a way that the orbs sailed past me.

The girl sighed. "It really would have been the best for both of us if you'd just taken that hit." She swung the gohei in a series of arcs, creating a net of the glowing orbs. I once again attempted to remain still and gather data about the orbs, but my body moved on its own, attempting to find a way to dodge the net, trying to dodge between a large gap in the middle of it, however, despite my involuntary efforts, I was hit approximately three centimeters below my right shoulder joint and ten centimeters above my left knee. Where the orbs made contact, there was a strange flare up in signals, causing an overload in certain sectors, interrupting certain processes and causing involuntary spasms in those areas.

"Not bad," she said, nodding her head. "Most people simply freeze in that situation." She began waving her gohei again, combining it with hand motions. Having determined the threat she posed however, I prepared my knife and attempted to reach her. Before I managed to, she sent another wave of the orbs, this time in a close-knit pattern centered around my current position. Unable to move in time, a large quantity of the orbs converged upon me, creating a massive number of signals, causing all processes other than interpreting the signals to cease, freezing me in place.

"Hmm," the girl said, walking over. "Did my danmaku freeze you somehow? That is very strange." Her expression became slightly sad. "I am sorry that this was necessary, but it will be only be for a few more days at most, I believe." She turned around, seemingly preparing something.

At this point, the signals had finished being processed, and I had regained control of my body. As the girl's back was turned, I attempted to swing my knife at her unprotected back, however, my arm involuntarily stopped a few centimeters above her back. Hearing the noise my arm made as it traveled in the air, she whipped around while taking a jump away from me. She stared at the knife and at me, her expression shifting between shock, and anger, finally settling on one of disappointment. "I see. It appears I was a bit too overconfident. And perhaps too trusting as well. You're not from Gensokyou, are you?"

"I have never heard of 'Gensokyou,'" I replied, still trying to find the error that had stopped me from attacking.

"I see," she said. "Then I'm afraid I really cannot let you leave here." She began to float, and summoned the largest number of the orbs (apparently called 'danmaku') than I had ever seen, as well as two large orbs that appeared to be patterned after yin-yang symbols. As I seem to be unable to attack, I have attempted to flee, however, there is nowhere to run.

As I have calculated there is a high chance I will be forced to cease all functions after the impacts, I have decided to attempt to send you this transmission so you may get some information about this land apparently called "Gensokyou," as it may be helpful to your plans, and will explain what has happened to the RED team. I am unsure if the transmission will be able to get to you from the other side of the anomaly, master, but if it does, I hope it will be useful.

Report Ends

P.S. Please excuse my use of the forbidden words "I," and "my," as well as the unnecessary details. The errors seem to have corrupted those protocols as well.

P.P.S. Please excuse the need of a postscript. Extra notes were thought to be necessary to explain the situation.


	12. Chapter 12: The Scout vs Yuuka

I wanted to post a short "what-if" style thing here in honor of the TF2 Halloween update, but I didn't manage to finish it in time. So instead, the story continues. I might post the "what-if" thing and shift the chapters around when I'm done with it, we'll see.

Anyway, as always, thanks for reading.

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><p>PREVIOUSLY ON The Nine Red Men Incident-The Scout Chapters<p>

Having been warped to Gensokyou via a portal of Merasmus', the Scout found himself in a forest. There, he met Momiji, whom he promptly annoyed the hell out of, and Aya, whom he didn't as much. After starting an interview with Aya and talking about the respawn process, the Scout wound up destroying a tree with his baseball bat, which drew the ire of Yuuka, who had been nearby. Now, she prepares to blast him away with a master spark.

We now return you to: The Nine Red Men Incident-The Scout Chapters

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><p>Scout's thought process, in that second he had before the master spark fired, went something like this: "Pain equals bad." "But..but…woman!" "PAIN EQUALS BAD!" "Ok, ok, fine." He scrambled to move out of the way, and managed to roll almost out of the path of the spark before it fired, causing his vision to be filled with a stream of rainbow colors, nearly blinding him. His right hand was still in the path, however, and he felt a surge of intense pain as his skin began to crackle from the spark. Yelping in pain, he managed to pull his hand back after spending only a couple milliseconds in the path of the beam. He briefly glanced at his hand to find that a large part of the back of his hand was bright red, and there was blood dripping from the palm of his hand, which had been pressed into the ground hard enough that a cut had formed along the line that separated the part of his hand that hadn't been in the path of the spark, and the part that had been. He cursed under his breath.<p>

"Hmm, that's some pretty impressive dodging for a human," Yuuka said, as the spark faded. "But can you do a second time?" She once again pointed her parasol at him, and the tip began to glow, whispering "Master Spark" under her breath. The Scout ran towards the trees, attempting to pull out his scattergun and wincing as his right hand throbbed in pain. Looking back, he could see that Yuuka was leading her shot towards where he'd be in a couple seconds, and quickly reversed direction. Yuuka, unable to compensate in time, ended up firing at nothing. Looking closely, the Scout could see that the beam seemed to pass right through the trees that were in the path, without doing any damage to them.

He skidded to a halt and turned to face Yuuka, who was slowly moving the spark towards him. He raised his scattergun. "You gotta be faster than that if you wanna hit me! You, on the other hand," he said, then fired the scattergun. Instead of the scatter shot he was expecting, it fired six medium-sized glowing orbs that flew out in a semi-random pattern in front of him. Five missed completely, but one managed to hit Yuuka right in the chest, though she didn't even seem to flinch. "What the hell is this crap?" he said to himself, as he began to lift the scattergun towards his face. Before he could inspect it, however, Yuuka spoke up.

"So you can shoot danmaku too, huh?" Yuuka said, aiming at him again. "Interesting. But that was so weak I barely felt it."

"Yeah, well, you'll be feelin' it in just a bit," he said, and began to zigzag towards her, hoping that the glowing balls would somehow do more damage if he was up close. Yuuka let off another master spark, and he felt the (very few) hairs on his cheek stand on end. Grinning, he quickly closed the distance between them, until he was right next to her. "Told ya," he said as he shot her point blank in the chest. She let out a pained gasp and flinched, the master spark flickering out. "Give up yet?" Scout said. "Cause I don't really like doing this to chicks, y'know what I mean? Though I do hear that violent make-up se-" he began before Yuuka's laughter cut him off. It started quietly, but quickly built up until she threw her head back and was laughing maniacally at the sky. "Well that ain't ever good," the Scout said, taking a step back. Momiji, who'd been looking on uncertainly, had her ears and tail stand on end, and resisted the urge to flee into the forest. Aya, who'd been taking pictures, flew up and perched on top of a tree, camera still trained on the battleground.

Eventually Yuuka's laughter died down, though every now and then a chuckle would still escape. "I have to admit, you're faster than I expected. It's been a while since a human other than Reimu or Marisa has managed to make actually stun me." She was grinning widely, spinning her parasol faster and faster. "Though to be honest, I was going easy on you. Didn't want to kill you, after all." She paused and took a deep breath to prevent herself from laughing. "But I guess I can go full out on you now, can't I?" she said, spreading her arms wide. As she finished her sentence, a swarming spiral of small glowing orbs flew out from behind her, heading towards the Scout. Momiji leapt into the tree with Aya, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire. The Scout was taken off-guard, and though he recovered quickly, it wasn't quickly enough, as a lot of the bullets managed to hit their marks, causing every patch of skin they hit to feel like they'd been stabbed by tiny thorns. The Scout screamed in pain, but continued running, dodging as many of the orbs as he could, though there were too many to dodge them all. Looking at Yuuka, he saw her once again point her parasol at him, and saw the tip begin to glow. He grimaced, and took a couple potshots at her, hoping to at least knock her off balance. Unfortunately, only a couple of the bullets hit her, since he'd moved farther back in order to dodge the orbs. The spark shot out, and he could barely outpace it this time, as trying to dodge the orbs as well made him slow down considerably. "What's wrong?" Yuuka said. "What happened to all that speed earlier?" She was smirking, though she was also shaking her head. "I'm disappointed. I thought this could be an actual fight, but you can't even land two good hits." The Scout gritted his teeth. She wanted speed? He'd show her speed. He reached for his pocket and pulled something Yuuka couldn't see out of it. When her spark ran out, he slid to a halt.

"Given up already?" she yelled, frowning. "What a waste." She trained her parasol at him, preparing to deliver the final blow. As she did so, there was a popping noise, though she didn't think much of it. "Goodbye then, human," she said, firing the spark. In an instant, the Scout's form was completely consumed by the spark, and Yuuka sighed. She'd really wanted more. Good fights were rare these days, and she couldn't really get Marisa or Reimu to fight her anymore without causing an incident, which was a pain. She almost missed the days when people would actually seek her out to fight, though the surprise attacks had gotten annoying after a while. She did like listening to the flowers uninterrupted, and she didn't have to worry about them getting attacked just to anger her, but there was just something about the excitement from a good fight that couldn't be replaced. When that human had managed to hit her, she'd felt it, at least for a second-the sheer adrenaline of a good fight. But then he'd just given up, and it'd almost felt like a betrayal, like he'd broken a promise to give her an actual fight. So it had been with a twinge of sadness that she'd fired at the unmoving Scout. As the spark finished, she didn't even bother to look towards where the Scout had been, and simply started to walk away.

"Ha! That it?" She heard his voice yell, sounding oddly distorted. She whirled around to see him still standing in the exact same spot he had been, completely unharmed, and seemed to be vibrating in and out of place as she watched. She felt herself begin to smile. "That was nothin'!"

Yuuka laughed happily, though others might have described it as maniacal. "Impressive! But can you do it twice?" she asked, taking aim once more.

"Just try me," the Scout said, grinning. He began to walk towards her, putting the can back into his backpack. Yuuka fired at him again, and the Scout was once again engulfed in rainbow-colored light. He ran down the corridor of light, glad his Bonk! Atomic Punch also protected him from this laser magic crap. On the other hand, he knew that it'd probably only last till the end of this spark, so he needed to get close enough to do some real damage to Yuuka. He really needed to get rid of that freaking 'Mister Spark' or whatever it was, or he was going to be completely screwed once this wore off. Thinking about it, he realized that she always seemed to fire it from her parasol, so if he could steal it, then he just might have a chance. He grinned an evil grin, a plan for revenge already forming in his mind.

Yuuka was grinning, waiting to see what the Scout was going to do next. Right before her Master Spark ran out, she saw him appear directly to her right, and before she could adjust the Spark's course, he reached out a hand and grabbed her parasol and tried to yank it out of her grip. Unfortunately for the Scout, Yuuka's strength was such that he didn't even manage to throw her off-balance. She raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?" she asked.

The Scout cursed under his breath. "Uh, I, what's that over there?" he said, looking behind her, tugging on the parasol with a sharp yank.

"You seriously think I'm going to fall for that one?" Yuuka said. "Your opinion of me must be rather low."

"No, seriously, someone's like attacking a tree or something."

Rolling her eyes, Yuuka turned to look behind her, just out of curiosity over what the Scout was planning to do. It might make for a more interesting fight at any rate. Unsurprisingly, she saw nothing unusual behind her. "Oh no. You fooled me. Whatever shall I do," she said flatly. She felt her arm being twisted in an uncomfortable way, and suddenly her parasol slid out of her grip. She turned back around to find the Scout holding onto it, laughing. "I would appreciate it if I could get that back," she said, sounding slightly annoyed.

"Hah, no way," the Scout said. He got hit by a stray danmaku bullet and winced. "This is the source of those 'Mister Spark' thingies, isn't it?"

"'Mister Spark'?" Yuuka said, sighing. "It's 'Master Spark'."

"Right, those things! Well now that I have it, it's time to give you a taste of your own medicine!" The Scout backed up a bit and pointed the parasol at her. "Master Spark," he yelled. Nothing happened. The grin fell from his face. "Uh, wait, what? Master Spark," he yelled again, shaking the parasol. "The hell's going on?"

Yuuka shook her head. "That's not where the Master Spark comes from. It's just an excellent parasol, really. I simply like to use it as a conduit for the Master Spark, since it can be slightly more accurate that way." The color drained from the Scout's face. "Though at this range, accuracy isn't that important." She held up her hand.

"Ah, crap," the Scout said, as Yuuka's hand began to glow.

"It was an interesting attempt though," she said. "Almost makes me want to spare you." The Scout looked hopeful for a second. "But you do still need to be punished." The Scout's face fell again. "I wonder if you can still dodge this," she said, smiling, as she released the Master Spark. The Scout, still slightly shocked and despairing that his plan hadn't worked, didn't manage to dodge in time, and was hit full force by the Master Spark, passing out immediately.

Yuuka walked over to his unconscious body, which was now pressed against a tree and looked rather red, and took back her parasol. She stretched a bit and rolled her shoulders, as behind her Momiji and Aya descended from the tree they'd been in. Momiji quickly ran over to the Scout and checked his pulse, which was surprisingly fine, and she didn't see any open wounds. She let out a sigh of relief. "He's not dead," she said.

"Of course he isn't," Yuuka said. "I'm not stupid enough to actually kill someone, especially an outsider."

Momiji raised an eyebrow. She looked like she was about to say something, but then shook her head instead. "Small mercies, I suppose. Though was that really necessary?"

"Yes, it was. He did destroy that tree, after all," Yuuka said, smiling. "Or had you forgotten?" Momiji winced, and was about to speak up when Aya interrupted.

"Oh man, that gave me some great material!" she said, taking a photo of Yuuka as she looked at Scout and Momiji. "Though I wish my interview had gone on longer." She flipped through her notebook. "I've barely got anything in here," she said, frowning.

Momiji sighed, hauling the Scout upright. "Well, I'm sure he'll be glad to talk to you whenever he regains consciousness. Especially," she said, grunting with the effort, "if you'd help me carry him to Nitori's."

"Uh, well, I should really start typing this up," Aya said, looking away. Momiji glared at her. "Fine," she said sighing. She walked over and supported the Scout's other shoulder. "But I better get an extended interview for this."

"You _have _heard him, right? I don't think you could get him to stop talking if you tried," Momiji replied.

"Well, I'll be taking my leave now," Yuuka said, as she turned and began walking away. "He'll probably be needing some itching cream when he wakes up," she said, before disappearing into the forest.

Momiji and Aya looked at each other, then shrugged, and began flying towards Nitori's place, the Scout hanging between them. "So, why are we going to Nitori's workshop?" Aya asked. "Wouldn't Eintei be better?"

Momiji sighed. "Well, if you have the time to spend navigating that forest, go for it. I'm still technically on guard duty, so I can't afford to go all the way there. Besides, Nitori owes me a favor, and she can get him to the village easily. I hear Eintei's got a stall there."

"Aww, you mean you're not gonna stick around to question him some more?" Aya said. "I could have gotten some more shots for that article about your lurid affair I was gonna write."

Momiji shot her a glare and tried to flick Aya with her free hand, but Aya simply dodged out of the way. "Well unfortunately for you, I've got more important things to do than let you take misleading photos."

"Oh, fiiiine," Aya said. "Maybe I can make it about Nitori instead. 'Shy Kappa Caught Caring for Wounded Lover' sounds just as good, really."

"Ayaaa," Momiji said, growling. "If you write that about Nitori, I'll-" she said, before getting cut off.

"Ah, you're no fun. But alright, alright. An interview with an outsider will have to do, I suppose," Aya said, sighing.

"Glad we understand each other," Momiji said.

They flew the rest of the way in relative silence.


	13. Extra: Merasmus' Kartnival of Terror 1

Hey there, people. This is the "What if" thing I was talking about earlier, which is more of just a random thing inspired by this year's TF2 Halloween update. I didn't really think it should be its own story, since it's still has the initial set-up as this one, so it's an "extra." It's set before the most recent Scout chapter, so I might do some re-ordering. I'll either continue it immediately or after I finish the second update for each team member, I haven't really decided, so let me know which you want, if you care!

As always, thanks for reading.

* * *

><p>"Attention fools! I mean…residents of Gensokyou," a voice said, booming out over the land. In the fields, farmers stopped working and looked up, wondering what new incident this voice heralded. "I am the great, evil, all-powerful, and totally-not-at-all in debt to the JapaneseGensokyouan Mafia, wizard Merasmus! And I have come to this land to bring you news of a once-in-a-lifetime event!" The voice paused, before continuing as if it was talking to somebody off to the side, "It's once-in-a-lifetime because if they come, they'll die, you see, um…" the voice said, apparently realizing they were still broadcasting, "of laughter! And fun! Yes, definitely of those things and not the horrible, horrible gaping maws and giant smashing hammers that are strewn about everywhere. Or would be, if it was that kind of event. Which it isn't." The voice cleared its throat. "Anyway! I would like to invite you to…Merasmus' Kartnival of Terror! Because it uses go-karts, and is a Carnival! Get it?" Silence fell across Gensokyou. "Right, well. Anyway, this event is coming to Gensokyou for a limited time only! Limited meaning until I've made $12,000 dollars, so hurry over to the graveyard in front of the Great Mausoleum, and join in the fun! And terror, also terror, but mainly fun! Now how do I turn this spell off again?" There was a sound of pages rustling, until finally the voice spoke again. "Ah-ha! Magnum Vocem Ceasum!"

All over Gensokyou, people began to move. Aya, ever on the lookout for good stories, took off for the Mausoleum as fast as she could, quickly followed by the Scout, who was still being chased by Yuuka, while Momiji stood behind in confusion. In the underground the Oni, ever willing to find a bigger and better party, stopped their fighting (or in some cases, continued it while they moved) and began running towards the surface, the Demoman swept along for the ride. Even Satori, who rarely went outside, allowed her pets to go to the surface to see the 'Kartnival,' and Orin, still in a rush, took the Soldier's unconscious body along in her wheelbarrow. The Pyro, hearing of the Kartnival, clapped their hands excitedly and began convincing Mokou to go, who eventually gave up and started leading the way to the Mausoleum. The children in the village all began to run off to the Mausoleum as well, forcing Keine and those adults who worked in the village to run off after them. Cirno, Dai, and the Heavy, seeing this mass exodus from the village, followed the crowd. The Engineer took the elevator back up and met Nitori and Hina, who, after he explained the situation, began leading him towards the Kartnival. The Medic and Eirin, neither of whom wanted to leave the hospital, were dragged away by Kaguya and the rabbits, their protests overruled. The Sniper, after telling Sakuya that this "Merasmus" was also the person who'd sent him here, got Sakuya to take him with her to the Mausoleum, while Marisa, who was always looking for things that seemed fun, tagged along. The blond-haired girl who'd stopped the spy earlier dragged him away towards the Kartnival, assuming he'd been spying for this "Merasmus" who'd organized a Kartnival so near the temple.

Aya and the Scout arrived first, of course, to find Merasmus standing in front of an enormous tent, talking to what looked to the Scout like a person pretending to be a zombie with a bit of paper on their face. "-alright, Yoshika?" Merasmus was saying. "No brains or life energy or whatever you Jiang Shi like from the customers. At least not until they've paid."

"Yeeessssss," the Jiang Shi said.

"Ha, found you again Merasmus! Ya can't hide from me!" the Scout said, posing in the most heroic way he could manage.

"Ah, Scout, perfect timing," Merasmus said.

"What, for you to get your ass kicked?" the Scout said, as he readied his bat.

"No, no, I need some more exhibits for the freak show," Merasmus said.

"Why dontcha just use yourself? You're plenty freaky already!"

"Har har. I need to run the show here, I can't just sit around in a cage." Merasmus said. "So…Apparatus Trapus Springus!" As he finished the incantation, a cage appeared around the Scout, trapping him. A sign popped out of the ground reading "See THE PITIFUL MAN-CHILD! The amazing link between Man and Child, revealed, at last!" Aya quickly took a picture, while Yuuka, who'd just arrived, took one look, then smiled widely and walked off without a word, humming to herself.

"Wha-hey! Let me outta here!"

"Ahahaha, fool! Of course not, I need the revenue!"

"I have to admit," Aya said, stifling laughter, "the sign's a nice touch."

"Why thank you," Merasmus said, bowing.

"Wait, what? What's it say? What's it say?" the Scout said, looking back and forth between them quickly.

"You'll find out eventually," Aya said. "By the way," she said, turning to Merasmus, "Can I interview you?"

"You wish to interview the great wizard Merasmus? I knew it was only a matter of time! Of course Merasmus will be interviewed," Merasmus said, happily.

"Wait, but what about _our_ interview?" the Scout said. "I still have so much to say!"

"Well, you're not going anywhere," Aya said. "I'll get back to you."

"But then you won't get to see my awesome escape from this cage!" the Scout said, and began straining against the bars.

It was at this point that the Spy arrived, being dragged by the blond-haired girl. "Hey, you," she yelled at Merasmus. "What's this about using the graveyard for a Kartnival or whatever?" Meanwhile the Spy, having recovered from having his arm nearly pulled out of its socket, looked at the Scout in his cage and, unable to contain his laughter, began snorting and chuckling.

The Scout, recognizing the laughter, yelled, "Oh shut up and help me outta here, willya, Spy?" The Spy kept laughing.

"Ah ha! I knew you were a spy!" the blond-haired girl said. The Spy removed his mask, getting rid of the disguise.

"Ah, Spy! How kind of you to join us," Merasmus said, momentarily distracted from talking to Aya. "Would you be so good as to stand still, please?" he asked. Before the Spy could react, Merasmus yelled "Movete Controllem!" and the Spy was forced into a crouch, with his hands up in the air clapping like pincers.

"Oh merde," the Spy said, realizing he couldn't control his movements anymore.

Now the Scout was laughing. "Who's laughing now, chucklehead?" he said, in between laughs.

The Spy glared at the Scout venomously. "Tell no one of this," he said,

"What're ya gonna do, pinch me?" the Scout retorted.

The Spy ground his teeth together, and was about to reply when Merasmus spoke up. "That's enough for now, exhibits! Can't have you killing each other before the show. Though maybe after…" he said, stroking his chin. "Anyway, Placus Correctus Transportatem!" he yelled, and suddenly the Scout and Spy were gone, though the faint sound of their bickering could be heard from inside the tent. "A bit too distracting to have them out here, I think. Here's where people buy tickets, after all!"

Aya scribbled down some notes in her notebook, while the blond-haired girl looked confused. "Uh…wasn't that guy your spy?" she asked.

"What, mine? Merasmus has no need of spies! Usually, anyway. Though that may have been helpful before this whole financial nightmare started."

The girl shook her head. "So this is all a plan to get money?"

"What? No no no no no. No. Maybe. A little bit. Merasmus is in a bit of bind, you see," Merasmus said.

The girl grinned. "Well, you will, of course, be giving the Myouren temple 15% of your earnings, won't you?"

"Well of course I…wait, what? Why would Merasmus do that?"

"Because some of this is Myouren temple property, buddy! You gotta pay a fee to use it."

"What? But Merasmus is already paying 10% to...um…someone else!"

"Well tough! If you don't pay us properly, then we'll just tear it down now," the girl said, putting her sickle right against the side of the big tent.

"Wait! Stop! Ok, ok! Merasmus will pay your 15%, just don't harm the tent! It took forever to set that up." Merasmus said, waving his hands.

The girl stuck out her hand. "Shake on it?"

"Yes, yes, fine," he said, shaking her hand.

"Fantastic!" the girl said, moving her sickle away. "Pleasure doing business with you. I'll be back to collect when this is over!" she said, and walked away.

Merasmus wiped his brow. "I'll need to make even more money now," he said to himself. He turned towards Aya, who'd taken quite a few notes and was smiling widely. "Now, shall I give you a tour while we do this interview?"

"Yes, that sounds great! Oh, and about my 5% publicity fee," she began, as they walked off out of Yoshika's earshot, leaving her alone at the front of the tent.

A few mintues later, people started arriving in droves. The children arrived first, followed by the villagers, with the Heavy, Cirno and Dai following behind. Yoshika, being the only ticket seller, was swarmed by people, and, being as stiff as undead are known for being, was rather slow in taking people's money and handing out tickets. She was, however, very good at stopping people from not paying at all, as the villagers knew that she was very, very strong, and fast if need be. When the Heavy arrived at the front of the line, asking about where Merasmus was, Yoshika told him inside, and the Heavy, not wanting to draw more attention to himself than he already was by his sheer size, bought tickets for himself and the faeries.

After them came Nitori, Hina, and the Engineer. Nitori and Dell were talking about the sheer size of the tent, interested in it's construction and whether or not it was entirely magical, while Hina listened, feeling slightly left out.

"I'm tellin' ya, Merasmus isn't the type to actually build anything. It's probably all made from his magic," Dell was saying.

"Look, that cloth there isn't fake. Some parts of this have to be actual real objects in order for it to be structurally sound," Nitori replied.

Hina, noticing Yoshika, walked over to her. "Um, excuse me," she said. "But is Merasmus here by any chance?"

"Inssssiiiiide," Yoshika said.

"Oh, excellent," Hina said, and attempted to walk in, but Yoshika blocked her path.

"Mussst buy ticket," Yoshika said, holding out a roll of small paper tickets. The words "Valid for one entry into Merasmus' Kartnival of Terror! Muhahahaha" were printed on them.

"Oh, um, alright," Hina said. "How much for three?"

"That will be $60 or an equivalent amount of Gensokyouan yen," Yoshika said, her voice completely normal.

"What? But that's so much…" Hina said, looking at her nearly empty wallet.

"It is the standard amount paid for one in the outside," Yoshika said, in a practiced tone.

Hina sighed, and turned towards Nitori and Dell. "Um, sorry to interrupt but, I…don't have the money to spare," she said, embarrassed.

"Huh? Oh, how much was it?" Dell said, pulling out a rather stuffed wallet.

"S-sixty dollars," she said, looking away and blushing.

"Alright," he said, pulling out three twenties. He gave them to Yoshika, who gave them three tickets.

"T-thank you," Hina said, bowing.

"S'my pleasure Ms. Hina," Dell said, tipping his hardhat.

"Hey," Nitori said, interrupting. "Let's get going! I wanna ask Merasmus some questions. Mostly about this tent thing."

"I'm telling you, it's all magic," Dell said.

"Well, we'll see," Nitori replied, heading into the tent. Dell and Hina followed.

A little while later, Sakuya, Marisa, and a terrified Sniper arrived. The Sniper was shaking slightly. "Bloody hell, it's good to be on solid ground," the Sniper said, getting off the back of Marisa's broom and wobbling towards the tent. Marisa took this opportunity to slap him on the back, almost sending him tumbling forwards, but Sakuya caught him.

"Hah, you're such a lightweight. That wasn't even half as fast as I can fly!" Marisa said.

The Sniper visibly blanched. "Remind me to never get on your broom again."

Sakuya smirked. "It's really not something you forget. Now, shall we," she said, indicating the tent. The Sniper nodded gratefully.

"Ah man, I wonder what's in this Kartnival, after all," Marisa said, excited. There was a loud thump noise from inside, and some clanging noises, followed by some clapping noises. "It sounds fun," she said, a huge grin on her face.

They started to walk into the tent, but were stopped by Yoshika. "Tiiiickets," she said.

"What?" Marisa said.

"You need tiiiickets," Yoshika replied, holding up the roll.

"Hah, screw that," Marisa said, laughing, She ran towards the entrance, but Yoshika caught her arm, stopping her in place. "Wha-let go!"

"Buuuuy ticket," Yoshika said, while Marisa tried and failed to escape.

"How much?" the Sniper asked, interjecting.

"$20 or Gensokyouan equivalent per person," Yoshika said, once again speaking normally.

The Sniper grumbled and took out enough money for two of them.

"Thaaaank you," Yoshika said, handing out the tickets, still gripping Marisa's arm. The Sniper handed Sakuya a ticket.

"Shall we?" he said. Sakuya let out a short laugh.

"Hey wait, what about me?" Marisa said. "You aren't just gonna leave me out here, are you?"

"I dunno, I think you need to slow down a bit," he said. "Stop and smell the roses. Listen to the breeze in the trees. Or screams of enjoyment for reasons you don't get to know," the Sniper said, smirking.

"Wha-you, you, jerk!" Marisa said as the Sniper and Sakuya started walking past.

"You could always just 'borrow' one," Sakuya whispered to her.

"Not if she's got my arm in her grip. It's like a vise!" Marisa retorted. "But," she said, grinning, you did give me an idea."

Just after the Sniper passed Marisa, he felt like his pocket was suddenly lighter. Puzzled, he patted himself down, only to find his wallet missing. Whirling around, he saw Marisa handing Yoshika a twenty, his wallet in her hand. He groaned, resting his head in his hand. Marisa, freed of Yoshika's grip, handed him his wallet back. "I guess I'm just too fast for you," she said, smirking. With that, she skipped off into the tent, while the Sniper followed grumbling. Sakuya picked up the rear, an amused look on her face.

About a half-hour later, during which there had been a trickle of people, mostly Kappa and a couple fairies who had to be turned away due to lack of funds (something which was rather difficult for Yoshika to explain to them), Mokou and the Pyro finally arrived, Mokou looking exhausted. Looking up, she saw the giant tent and sighed in relief. "Yes, we're here. No need to keep asking." The Pyro clapped in excitement and ran towards the tent, Mokou following behind. Before the Pyro ran into the tent, Yoshika stopped them.

"Tiiiiickets," she said, in a manner sounding bored even for an undead. The Pyro tilted their head questioningly. "Eeeeeentry requires tiiicket," she continued. The Pyro tilted their head the other way, then reached out to poke the seal on Yoshika's face. Yoshika grabbed their hand before it reached her, frowning. "Do not touch," she said. The Pyro managed to look chastened. Mokou sighed.

"Whatever, I'll pay," she said, reaching into a pocket in her overalls. "How much?"

"$20 or Gensokyouan equivalent per ticket," came the practiced reply, though Yoshika kept her eyes focused on the Pyro, who pressed their pointer fingers together.

Mokou didn't have a lot of money. Truthfully she didn't really need any, but every now and then, one of the people she escorted from the forest would give her a tip, or some of the people around town would give her a bit for helping out. She mostly just spent it on food every now and then. Looking through the amount she'd collected, she found she had just a little bit more than enough, so, with a sigh, she gave Yoshika the money and took the tickets, handing one to the Pyro, who looked at it curiously. As they walked inside, Mokou had to prevent the Pyro from trying to light it on fire with the strange device on their palms.

About a half-hour later, as far as Yoshika could tell, when the sounds from inside the tents had reached a fever pitch, the denizens of the underground began arriving. First, a swarming mass of Oni and a few other Youkai reached Yoshika, and she knew she wasn't strong enough to stop them if they tried to force their way in. her Master had, however, told her a different possible solution. Yelling as loud as she could, to be heard over the din, she said: "Infinite Booze Pass is $20!"

At that point, she couldn't hand out tickets fast enough, but eventually she managed to hand them out to every Oni and Youkai who'd shown up, but also a one-eyed human with a strange accent, and even had one of the Youkai pay for some unconscious people in her wheelbarrow.

She hoped her Master would be proud of her.


	14. Chapter 14: The Soldier's Conversation

So, this chapter may seem kinda...weird, at least in terms of ideas. But I had it thought out like this for a while, and hopefully it's entertaining at the very least. Also, as a heads-up, I've been having a bit of writer's block just in terms of phrasing things, so updates may slow down slightly. I've got a bit of a safety net, and hopefully it'll last, but I thought I'd warn you just in case.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

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><p>Previously on The Nine Red Men Incident: the Soldier Chapters: The Soldier, having been taken to an unknown land (Gensokyou) against his will by the wizard Merasmus, encountered a woman (Utsuho Reiuji a.k.a Okuu) who didn't know what America was, causing the Soldier to believe her to be a barbarian. He attempted to fight her, only to find his weapon had been sabotaged by Merasmus to shoot non-lethal glowing orbs (Danmaku) instead of his Mann Co. rockets. In a sacrifice play, he detonated one of his grenades, believing it would result in their deaths. As the grenade was rendered non-lethal as well, he only succeeded in knocking out himself and Okuu. This drew the attention of Rin Kaenbyou (Orin), who discovered their unconscious bodies and wheeled them away to an unknown location.<p>

We now return you to The Nine Red Men Incident: the Soldier Chapters

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><p>The Soldier woke up in a strange room. The walls seemed to be made of stone, and the only light he could see was a small lantern, hanging over his head. He attempted to get up, only to find that he was tied to a bed. The knots were good, too, and despite his struggling he couldn't get free, though that didn't stop him from trying. He began to do what he always did in a prisoner situation: yell insults at his captors. "You yellow-bellied cowards! Tying a man down like this without his consent! Was the violence too much for ya, you barbarians? Did you tie me up and then crawl back to your little barbarian huts and cry like little barbarian babies? Good! That's what you should be doing! Because once I'm out of these –rgh- ropes, I'll be coming for you!"<p>

"That won't be necessary," said a voice coming out of the darkness. A small figure stepped into the light, looking no taller than a young girl. She wore a light blue blouse with a white skirt, and had short, violet hair. The thing that stuck out the most about her, however, were the thick, red, tubes that seemed to go between her and a small orb that floated near her, which, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be an eye.

The Soldier, however, couldn't see any of this, as his helmet had fallen over his eyes during his struggle to escape, so the effect was somewhat lost. "Ha! You may think plunging me into darkness will make me weaker, but I have trained myself to be even more powerful in the dark!" He attempted to move his arms into a fighting stance, but since they were still bound, he simply struggled against the ropes some more. The girl sighed, walked over to the soldier and tilted the helmet back up so he could see. "Ah ha! I knew that would get you to turn the lights on again! Savages always fall for that one!" The girl rolled her eyes, including the floating one.

"I'm sure they do. But we aren't savages."

"Ha! That woman didn't even know what America was! You aren't fooling me!"

The girl tilted her head to the side, a slight smile on her lips. "You always say exactly what you're thinking don't you?"

The Soldier was puzzled. He said, "I don't know why you'd ask that, but yes! Unless I'm thinking about American secrets, you won't get any of those out of me!"

"I wasn't even aware there were any until right now," she said, smiling. The Soldier blanched. She looked at him, confused, and whispered, "take two teaspoons salt and mix well. That's…a cookie recipe?" Then she shook her head and looked back at him. "Well don't worry, I don't really care about those. What I want to know is: why did you attack my pet?" she asked, her gaze intensifying.

"Pet? You mean that barbarianess?" He gasped. "She's your pet? Like a slave? Abraham Linconlog didn't fight the entire southern hemisphere with only his hat and beard just to let slavery still exist! How dare you betray President Lincolnlog!" He struggled against his ropes even harder, managing to have his helmet fall back over his eyes.

The girl propped his helmet up again and looked at him angrily. "That is not how it is. She was my pet before she became what she is. At this point, it simply means she's a very old friend." She sighed. "But you didn't answer the question. Why did you attack her?"

"Because…because she didn't know about America! Which makes her a savage, and thus makes attacking the correct response."

"And you truly believe that? That not knowing about America makes someone a savage?"

"Yes! Nothing you savages say will chance my mind. Until the day I die, I will believe so!" He frowned after this, remembering that he'd been holding his grenade when it exploded. He wondered why he wasn't dead, why a letter hadn't been sent to his parents (Mr. and Mrs. Doe) back home with the official seal and the $10 bereavement bonus.

The girl blinked, then began to smile. "Well I'm afraid I have bad news for you then, Mr. Doe."

"Wha-how do you know my name?" the Soldier growled. "No one knows my name! Not even me! Usually…"

"Because Mr. Doe, I regret to inform you," the girl said, a sad look on her face, "That you are dead."

"WHAT!" he yelled, struggling against his ropes. "You're lying!"

"I'm afraid it's true," she said, shaking her head sadly. "That…um…that…" The soldier thought back to how the woman had said that 'don-mah-cu' was non-lethal, that his grenade would be harmless. "Grenade," she said, continuing, "that you were holding exploded, and killed you."

"That's…there's no way that's true! I-" his face brightened up. "Ha! I should have respawned! That's what happens when anyone on our team dies."

"Mr. Doe, do you know how this 'respawn' works?"

"Well, Engie and Medic explained it at some point. I was too busy lecturing my heads though."

The girl shot him a disgusted look briefly, an image of severed heads sitting on a fence etched into her mind. She coughed and collected herself. "Yes, well, you were, um, out of range of the respawner when you were blown up. As a result, you are simply dead."

The Soldier thought about it. That might be the case but…he refused to believe it. They were tricking him! That must be it!

The girl stared at him, sorrowfully. "I'm afraid this is no trick Mr. Doe. You must accept it. Here, I will prove it to you." She turned around. "I am like a…helper for you, while you're here, to help guide you to where you should go. As such, I can tell exactly what you are thinking at any given moment. Think something for me, Mr. Doe. Something I shouldn't know."

The Soldier frowned. He wasn't quite sure what this so-called "helper" was supposed to be doing. He'd never heard of any religion that had helpers like this. But he decided to humor her, and thought of that time when he was around six, when his mom, in one of her more lucid moments, had made him try on a dress. It hadn't been that bad, he remembered.

The girl snorted, but quickly regained her composure. "You know, there's nothing wrong with liking women's clothing. Though having it forced on you couldn't have been great."

The Soldier remained silent. How could she have known? He hadn't told ANYBODY about that, and there was no way his mom did, so did she…did she actually know what he thought about? She must, but that meant that he…he was dead. He sighed, then gave a small smile. "Then at least I went out in battle. A true soldier's death." His eyes watered, but no tears fell. He took a deep breath to get himself under control. "Well then, 'helper,'" he said, "if I've died, where am I? Why are there no angels? This doesn't seem like heaven."

"It's not," the girl said, matter-of-factly. "This is hell."

"WHAT!" the Soldier yelled, causing the girl to flinch. "WHY?"

"Calm down," the girl said, waving a hand. "This isn't quite like the hell you're thinking of." The Soldier looked at her quizzically. "Yes, this is hell, but it's not hell proper. It's like a testing ground, say."

"Testing ground?"

"Well, you weren't so bad that you were irredeemable, but you did some evil acts. In this place, you can attempt to do good things to make up for them."

"Evil acts!? When did I ever do something like that? I have been the best goddamned man I could ever be! I killed Nazis, for god's sake!"

"Well," she began, holding up a few fingers, "Aside from all the cursing you've just done, you've killed many, many people," she put a finger down, "have been extremely intolerant," she put down another finger, "and you hurt one of my subordinates, which is the one I'm really upset about, honestly."

The Soldier looked angry at this. "Since when has killing traitors and savages been a sin? Or this tolerance crap?"

The girl looked at him skeptically. "Since forever?"

"I don't remember any of that," the Soldier said, thinking back to when his father was teaching him about "the moral fabric of society." Mostly it was just him ranting about how all the immigrants were destroying it and how just rounding them up and sending them back would be the moral thing to do.

"That's," the girl said, before pausing. "Well, to be honest, that's because you had some pretty crappy teachers."

"How dare you say that about my parents! They made me who I am!"

"That was kind of my point," the girl said. "In any case, this is just how it is here. If you improve on those flaws," the Soldier scoffed. "Then you can go back. If you don't, well," she trailed off. "Do you remember the room you died in? That big, hot room?"

"Yes," the Soldier said sullenly.

"Well, if those who arrive here don't improve, we feed them to fires like that. Something needs to keep them burning, after all."

The Soldier frowned. He was suspicious of this "helper" person still. But she was able to know what he was thinking, so she had to be connected to him in _some _way. Maybe he could just blow up all of the people protecting this place and leave.

The girl snorted. "What, you think we left you with any weapons at all? Of course we didn't. We're not stupid."

Well, the Soldier thought, if this is some sort of afterlife, maybe if he just thought he had one, he could get one, like in those lurid dreams.

The girl sighed. "First, you mean lucid dreams. Second, that's not how it works. If it was, everyone would just try to blast the hell out of everything." She let out a short laugh. "Didn't even mean to do that. Anyway, you're not gonna be able to fight your way out of this one. That would defeat the whole point. "

The Soldier grit his teeth. He was out of options. He didn't want to believe this, this…madness, but he didn't really have a choice. He still didn't fully believe that he was in this "proving ground," or whatever, because he knew he'd been a good man. But he doubted that the girl would let him go if he didn't say he believed it. So he decided to go along with it.

The girl rolled her eyes. "You know, I _do_ know what you're thinking. You don't believe me, even after all this, huh?" She sighed. "Well, I guess it's the best we're going to get. Do I have your promise that if I let you up, you won't attack me?"

"Damn right you do! I don't hurt little girls. Unless they're Nazis, but I never found any of those."

"Right. Well, it's not like you'd be able to hurt me anyway." She walked over to the ropes and untied them, letting the soldier get up. "You might want to get up slowly," she said. "You've been tied down for a long time, so-"

"Ha! A little bit of getting tied to bedposts never hurt anyone," the Soldier said, jumping up. He immediately keeled over, landing on his face. "Gah! Body! Why have you betrayed me!" he yelled.

"Well, I did warn you," she said. She held out a hand. "Need any help up?"

"Bah! You'd just get pulled down if you tried to help me up."

She shrugged. "I doubt it, but fine then. Have fun trying to get off the ground."

The Soldier attempted to push himself off the ground, but his wrists hurt too much to let him stand. His whole body felt sore and numb, and all his attempts to stand up resulted in him falling back down. The girl stood by and watched. "I'm glad you didn't accept my offer," she said eventually. "This is far more entertaining." The Soldier grumbled and attempted once again to get up, only to fail once more. He mumbled something under his breath. "What was that," the girl asked, grinning.

"You know what I'm thinking, don't you?"

"I do, but I want to hear you say it," she said.

The Soldier fidgeted on the floor, then said, "Help me up." The girl's smile widened in fake surprise.

"Why certainly," she reached down, grabbed the soldier by his outstretched hand, and raised him up to a sitting position. "Your legs might give out again, so just stay like this for a bit, ok." The Soldier grumbled. "So now you know, it's ok to ask for help, if you need it."

"Pah," the Soldier exclaimed. "Help is for freeloaders and whiners! Real men don't need help from anyone!" He looked down, sadly. "Which means I'm…I'm a failure! Grrah! I'm sorry teammates, I've let you all down!" He rested his head in his hands.

The girl sighed. "Well, it's a start I guess. I'm Satori Komeiji, by the way. I thought I might as well introduce myself if I'm going to be helping you improve."

The Soldier didn't look up. "Well you already know my name, don't you?"

"True," she said, tilting her head. "But it's still polite to introduce yourself anyway."

The Soldier snorted. "Hmph. Fine then. I'm the Soldier."

"I thought it was-" she began, before getting cut off.

"I know what it is!" The Soldier yelled. "But it was a…mistake. I'm the Soldier, just the Soldier."

"Alright," she said. "Fair enough. Well Soldier," she said, staring directly at him, "Are you ready to earn your redemption?"

Before the Soldier could speak, a girl with dog-like ears and a tail ran in. "Miss Satori, Miss Satori!"

Satori stood up, and put her hands on the excited girl's shoulders. "What is it Miki?" The girl started trying to speak but it mostly sounded like gibberish, so Satori put up a hand. "Calm down, collect your thoughts." As the girl started calming down, Satori's eyes widened. "You're kidding." The girl shook her head vigorously. Satori looked sideways at the Soldier. "Alright, go tell them to wait there and try to keep things under control. I'll be there as soon as I can." The girl nodded and ran off. Satori sighed. "Alright, something's come up, so I'm going to have to leave you here for a bit, but we'll continue this conversation as soon as I get back!"

Before the Soldier could even say: "Wait," she'd left, shutting the door behind her. He tried to run over to it, but fell again. "Damnit legs! You've brought shame on this entire unit!" he said. He pulled himself over to the door, and, stretching his arm up as far as he could, grasped the handle and pulled. Unfortunately, it was locked. He slumped against it. He grit his teeth, and resolved that when his traitorous legs stopped being AWOL, he would charge the door and break it down.

He wished his legs would hurry up.


	15. Chapter 15: Pyro's Trip to the Mountain

Hi everybody! Sorry this is a bit late, but I've been playing The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth like crazy recently, which has been playing havoc with my writing schedule. This, combined with my slight bit of writer's block, has caused my writing to slow down considerably, unfortunately. I still have a bit of a buffer, and hopefully I'll work through them soon enough, but it may result in some delays.

Also, Desert Bus for Hope is starting, so...I'm not actually sure if that will help or hurt, but I guess we'll see.

But in any case, thanks for reading!

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><p>They walked quickly, and made good time despite the distance. Along the way, they passed a couple of Kappa workshops, but the owners seemed to be either away or too busy working to pay any attention to them as they passed. The Pyro tried to run off and see what they were, especially the one that had an outdoor forge, but Mokou dragged them back into line relatively easily, explaining that the people probably didn't want to be disturbed, and when that didn't work, telling them that wandering off would delay "Terry's" reunion, which got them back into line pretty quickly.<p>

After about an hour, they'd managed to make it to the edge of the Tengu Forest, where Mokou spotted a tree with a makeshift table under it. Surprisingly, she didn't see anyone there, and she wondered if it was a decoy guard post, meant to fool people into thinking it was unguarded. As they approached, however, she saw a tipped over mug on it, and the fresh stain made by whatever liquid had been in the mug. "This is odd," she said to herself.

"What is odd, bubble lady," the Pyro said.

"Well, calling me 'bubble lady' is, for starters. I did say you could call me Mokou, didn't I? But what's odd is that there should be a guard here, but it looks like they left in a hurry." She ran a hand through her hair. "And that's unfortunate, because to pass through Tengu territory we need a paper signed by a guard. Otherwise, we're considered trespassers, and that's not somethin' we wanna be."

The Pyro tilted their head to the side. "Why."

Mokou rolled her eyes. "Because they're pretty damn protective of their territory. Meaning we're likely to be taken off and interrogated, which would use up more time than I'd like." She decided against mentioning the other possibilities, as she guessed the Pyro wouldn't really understand them, and she'd rather not think about them.

"Then what do we do," the Pyro said, poking their pointer fingers together and looking downcast. If it hadn't been for the gas mask covering their face, their size, and the fact that their voice (or at least the voice she now associated with them) was completely monotonous, Mokou might have mistaken the Pyro for a child. As it was, the juxtaposition was unsettling.

"Well, if we don't have the passport, there's still one place we can go," she said. "The Moriya Shrine's located on the mountain, and since worshippers have to be allowed to come and go as they please, the path up there's considered neutral territory. Least that's what Keine tells me. It's not much, but it's worth a look. At the very least, it'll kill some time till the guard comes back, hopefully."

The Pyro clapped happily. "Ooh, that sounds interesting. Can I blow bubbles at the shrine. I miss the bubbles."

Mokou choked. "I, uh, well, you'd, you'd have to ask the owners. You might be able to do it at the shrine grounds, if you don't blow them at the building itself, but ask them first, ok?"

"Ok," the Pyro said, giving a thumbs up.

"Good," Mokou said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Now we just need to find the right trail. I think Keine said it was more this way," she said, circling around the forest southwards. After a bit of searching, they found the path to the shrine, indicated by an arch with a sign reading: "This way to the Moriya shrine," with a couple hand-painted drawings of a young woman with long green hair and a snake-shaped hair ornament and frog hair clip, along with an older stern-looking woman with purple hair with a large circular structure made of entwined rope, and a young-looking girl with a large, hat with eyes and blond hair, winking and sticking her tongue out. The Pyro seemed fascinated by the drawings, and tilted their head to look at them from almost every angle. "You really like those drawings, huh?" Mokou asked, bending down for a closer look. "Guess these are pictures of the goddesses themselves, huh?" She chuckled. "Wonder who painted them."

The Pyro waved at the sign. "Hello goddesses. It's nice to meet you too."

"Uh, Pyro, these are just paintings. The real goddesses are up there," Mokou said, pointing up the mountain.

"But they waved to me," Pyro said. "Was it impolite to wave back."

Mokou was silent for a second, then sighed. "No, you weren't impolite, just kinda, uh," Mokou said, before trailing off, thinking. "You just had things wrong. They're not the goddesses. They're here to show people how to get to the real goddesses, that's their job. So they were beckoning you in."

"Oh. Ok then," the Pyro said, nodding. "Thank you welcomers."

Mokou, relieved that had worked, patted the Pyro on the back. "Alright, let's get going, shall we?"

"Ok. Bye welcomers," the Pyro said, as they began walking up the trail. Mokou walked slightly ahead of the Pyro, wondering, not for the first time, what could possibly have happened to them to make them like this.

After (yet another) long hike up the side of the mountain, during which Mokou had to stop the Pyro from wandering off once, saying something about cherubs in the forest, they made it to the entrance to the shrine. "Alright," Mokou said, stopping just below the stairs leading up to the shrine grounds. "Now, be careful. The people who live here are actual goddesses, and they are very powerful, or so I hear. I don't want to have brought you all this way only for you to piss some goddesses off and make this useless, ok?"

"I don't have any jarate, so I don't think I can piss them off," The Pyro said, tilting their head.

"What? What's jarate? You know what, never mind. Just don't anger them, ok?"

"Of course I won't. I never want to make people angry."

"Ok, good. Just…don't blow bubbles while we're here without permission." As she said this, she took out a cigarette and lit it, savoring what might be the last one she'd be able to have for a while.

The Pyro clapped excitedly again. "Yay. Bubbles."

Mokou exhaled, the smoke floating up to the sky. "Yes, bubbles. Now that'll have to tide you over for a bit."

"Awww." The Pyro said. "Fine."

Mokou nodded and, Pyro in tow, walked up the stairs to the arch denoting the entrance to the Moriya shrine grounds. "Remember, they could probably curse you with a thought, so be very careful," she whispered as they reached the top.

"GYAAAAH," they heard a voice yell as they passed under the arch, followed by a light clacking noise of bamboo hitting the ground.

"What the hell?" Mokou said under her breath, then took off running towards the sound of the voice, the Pyro following behind.

As they ran towards it, they heard the slam of a door opening, and another voice said, "Sanae, what is it? What's wrong?"

"M miss K-Kanako, I-I think a bug just j-jumped on me!"

"A bug?" The voice sighed. "Alright, just stand still and I'll see if I can get it. Where is it?"

"J-just on my back."

After a couple seconds, the second voice, apparently belonging to Kanako, spoke again. "Ok, I think I see it." Mokou and the Pyro rounded the edge of the shrine, their pace slowed due to what they'd heard, to see the purple-haired woman from the sign examining something on the green-haired girl's back. "Hold still," she said. Mokou and the Pyro saw the purple haired woman brush something off the green haired girl's back, then heard a squirting noise, and saw the two bend over coughing as a pungent smell filled the air.

"M-m-miss K-K-Kanako," the green-haired girl was saying, through her coughing, "t-that was a s-stink bug!"

"W-well," the purple haired woman said, through coughs, "I d-didn't know, S-Sanae! Besides, I t-thought you just w-wanted the b-bug gone."

"N-not if it was g-going to do t-this!"

"W-well then next t-time get the b-bug off yourself," the purple haired woman said, as she turned her head to the side and saw Mokou and the Pyro standing there. As they watched, her face, starting with her cheeks, slowly became redder and redder until it looked like she was about to explode, and she ran inside, sliding the door shut behind her with a slam.

"Wha-Miss Kanako?" the green-haired girl, whom Mokou realized was Sanae, said, as the door closed behind her. "Why are you-" she turned to see Mokou and the Pyro, who waved enthusiastically. "Ah," she said, her face coloring slightly. "H-hello. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Uh, sorry," Mokou said, rubbing the back of her head. "Did we come at an awkward time?"  
>"Hi, goddess lady," the Pyro said, still waving their hand wildly. "It is nice to meet you."<p>

"Uh, yes, right. Nice to meet you too," Sanae said, bowing. "And in response to your question," she said, turning to Mokou, "could, I ask you to, um," she paused for a second, while her blush deepened. "Wait-in-front-of-the-shrine-for-a-second-while-I-get-changed?" she said as quickly as she could.

"Um, yeah, sure," Mokou said, grabbing the Pyro's waving hand and beginning to circle back round towards the entrance.

"Th-thanks very much," Sanae said, and fled in the same manner as the purple-haired woman, who Mokou realized was Kanako, had done.

The Pyro looked crestfallen. "Awww. Why are they leaving. Did I do something wrong."

Mokou patted them on the back. "Nah, we just kinda showed up at a bad time. We didn't do anything wrong. Don't worry about it."

"If you say so," the Pyro said, seeming unsure.

"She said she'd meet us in front of the shrine, didn't she? So she can't be _that _mad at us." This brightened the Pyro up a bit. Mokou realized it was surprisingly easy to tell the Pyro's mood, even though their face was always completely covered and they could only speak either in muffled grunts or in that weird monotone voice of "Terry." It was somewhat impressive. "In any case," she said, lowering her voice, "does uh, 'Terry' have any idea about where their buddy is?"

The Pyro looked slightly worried. "I do not know. Terry has been quiet ever since we entered the shrine grounds."

"Huh? But didn't he just talk?"

"No, that is, well healy man called it a 'reflex.' Terry normally talks to me in here," the Pyro said, pointing at their own head, "but they haven't in a while."

Mokou frowned. "That's…weird. I hope we haven't come all this way for nothing."

The Pyro looked like they were about to say something when the main shrine door opened, revealing Sanae, wearing what looked like the exact same outfit she'd had on before. "Sorry about that," she said, with a slight bow. "Now, how can I help-" she began before getting a good look at the Pyro, "youuuu?"

"Hello again, goddess lady," they said.

"Wha-why are you wearing a gas mask?" Sanae asked, then, turning to Mokou, a slightly worried expression on her face. "Why are they wearing a gas mask?"

"Uh, well," Mokou said, "I don't know," she said, shrugging. "They wouldn't tell me." She looked at the Pyro, who looked away. "But don't worry about it, they haven't attacked anyone or anything yet."

The Pyro looked slightly confused. "That's not exactly encouraging," Sanae said, before sighing. "But I'll take your word for it." She turned to Mokou, finger on her forehead. "And you're," she paused thinking, before snapping her fingers, causing the Pyro to jump, "Mokou Fujiwara, right?"

"Y-yeah. But how did you know?" Mokou said, confused.

"We were introduced at one of those incident afterparties, I think." Sanae said.

"Oh, were we?" Mokou said, looking slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, I don't really remember it."

"I-it's ok," Sanae said, waving her arms in front of her face dismissively. "It took me a while to remember it myself." She turned to the Pyro. "And I don't think I've met you." She tentatively extended a hand. "I'm Sanae Kochiya, the Moriya shrine maiden." The Pyro reached out and shook it.

"Hi shrine maiden," they said, shaking her hand vigorously. "I'm Pyro." Sanae winced as her arm was jolted around in its socket. Eventually, Mokou had to step in to stop the handshake, as the Pyro seemed willing to just continue it forever.

"So," Sanae said, rubbing her shoulder, "what brings you both here to the Moriya shrine? Did you come to pray or donate?" she said hopefully.

Mokou rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. "Well, um, uh," she began, trying to avoid looking at the shrine maiden's hopeful face.

"We're looking for my friends who fell from the sky, but first we're trying to find Terry's relative on the mountain," the Pyro said. Sanae hopeful expression turned into one of complete confusion.

Seeing her expression, Mokou tried to give a better explanation. "Um, were you looking up at the sky a couple hours ago?"

Sanae tilted her head to the side. "A couple hours ago? No, but I do remember hearing a loud noise," she said, voice trailing off.

"Right, well, that loud noise was because of some weird explosion in the sky," Mokou said.

"WHAT? There was an explosion and I missed it?" Sanae said, looking upset. "Was it from like a giant mecha or a missile or something? Was it awesome looking?" She leaned in towards Mokou, who took a step back. Sanae seemed to realize that she was acting a bit too excited, and she took a step back and coughed into her hand.

"I mean, um, what happened?"

"I'm…not too sure myself, actually, but Pyro here," she said, pointing behind her toward the Pyro, who was rocking back and forth on their heels and looking around happily, "was apparently shot out of the explosion."

"Merasmus unplugged the drain," they chimed in.

"I…see," Sanae said, still a bit confused.

"And some friends came with them, it seems, so we're looking around for them," Mokou said.

"And you came here?" Sanae said, frowning. "I hate to say it, but this place is pretty remote," she said, sighing. "We hardly get worshippers as it is, let alone ones that fell from the sky."

"Yeah, I guess it woulda been too convenient to have a couple of 'em land here," Mokou said, while attempting to ignore the weird feeling of the Pyro playing with her hair. "Well, there was another reason we came up here though," she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. "This is gonna sound weird, but have you seen anything like that blob on top of Pyro's head around here?"

Sanae leaned around to get a good look at 'the blob,' which wobbled on top of the Pyro's head as they giggled, making swirls in Mokou's hair. Looking back at Mokou and seeing the irritated expression on her face, Sanae stifled a laugh and shook her head. "I'm afraid I haven't. Although," she said, tilting her head to the side in thought, "it does seem familiar for some reason, but I just can't remember why," she said, trailing off.

At that moment, a small girl, dressed in a purple dress with loose white sleeves and wearing an impressive yellow hat that for some reason had eyes on the top of it, burst out of the trees and ran towards the group. "Sanae, are you ok?" she yelled.

"Eh? Miss Suwako?" Sanae said, confused. "I'm totally fine, Miss Suwako. What happened?"

"Pyonta told me that-" the girl, who Mokou assumed was Suwako, said, before sliding to a stop in front of the group, eyes focused on the Pyro. The Pyro had jumped when startled by the girl's sudden appearance, causing Mokou's hair to become completely tangled, and they were trying to untangle some of it as best they could. "You," Suwako said, narrowing her eyes at the Pyro. "Get away from her," she said, pulling out a strange metal ring. The Pyro instantly put their hands up (unfortunately pulling some of Mokou's hair with them), and shook their head in a panic.

"But I didn't create any bubbles," they said, looking at Mokou for assurance. "That was the rule, wasn't it."

Mokou, still wincing slightly from the sudden removal of some strands of her hair, reluctantly nodded. "Yes, it was. Though this seems to be because of something else," she said, frowning.

Sanae, holding her gohei nervously, spoke. "M-miss Suwako, what's going on?"

Suwako stepped in front of Sanae protectively. "That person is not in their right mind. They're being controlled by the creature on their head."

"Well, I can't argue with that first part," Mokou said, shrugging, while the Pyro looked at her, confused, "but right now I'm pretty sure they're not under 'Terry's' control."

"Terry?" Suwako said, a puzzled look crossing her face. "Who's Terry?"

"That's what they call that blob thing on top of their head," Mokou said. "But how'd you know things like this existed?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. "And that there was one here?"

"As I said, Pyonta told me," Suwako said, patting her hat.

"Pyonta's your hat?" Mokou said, confused. "You know what, I don't know why that's surprising to me, anymore. But in any case, why does Pyonta think that Pyro here, or I guess Terry, is a threat?"

As she finished her sentence, she heard a muffled whisper behind her, and then felt the Pyro begin to stiffen and shake. Suwako readied her weapons, while Mokou looked warily at her, and Sanae looked between the two of them, confused. It was at this point that Kanako appeared in the main shrine entrance. "Just what is going on out here?" she said, causing everyone to look at her, save the Pyro, who was still shaking. Sanae began trying to stammer out an answer while Suwako tried to explain about Pyonta, and Mokou stared at her suspiciously. Suddenly, a monotone voice spoke, cutting through their explanations, saying "I believe I can explain." Everyone turned to look at the Pyro, who had stopped shaking and stepped calmly out from behind Mokou.

"Pyonta believes that I wish to change hosts to the 'Sanae' female. As their current host Suwako cares for this female, they alerted her to my presence in an attempt to stop me from taking her as a host. Is this not correct," the voice coming from the Pyro said, before turning to look at Pyonta, "parent?"


	16. Chapter 16: Demo's Bar Brawl

Hi everybody! Writing's still erratic, but I think it's getting better. Anyway, new chapter time, hope you like it. As always, thanks for reading!

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><p>Previously on The Nine Red Men Incident: Demo Chapters. Tavish DeGroot (a.k.a. the Demoman) found himself regaining consciousness in some rubble. After being given some booze by Yuugi, whose house he had crashed in to, they went off to search for his teammates, with Yuugi taking the alleyways and Tavish taking the main plaza. After meeting Yamame, who said she'd get him a beer from one of the many bars in the plaza, Tavish talked to Parsee, who, angry after being insulted by him, made him jealous of all the alcohol the Oni in the plaza had. As a result, Tavish stole a beer from an Oni, who, enraged, chased after him only to crash into another, starting a riot. Tavish headed for a random bar in the plaza.<p>

We now return you to The Nine Red Men Incident: Demo Chapters

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><p>Tavish had made it to the door of the bar he'd been running to. Without stopping, he burst open the door and yelled "Give me all your booze!"<p>

Yamame, who'd been talking to a patron over at the bar, turned and looked at Tavish in astonishment. Sensing the mood of the bar turning sour, she ran over to him and hissed, "What the hell do you think you're doing! I was going to bring you one when I was done here."

"One isn't enough," he roared, causing her to cover her ears. "All y'lucky bastards with your infinite booze and eyeballs, while poor little one-eyed me gets stuck outside with nothin'! It's no' fair I tell ya." He sniffed, wiping a tear from his eye. "So," he said, turning to glare at each bar patron in turn, "each of ya give me a drink for every eyeball in your pretty little heads."

"What if we ain't got any," said a voice from the back.

"Drinks?"

"No, eyeballs," said an Oni as he stood up. He had scars across his face, and his eyelids were closed. He opened them to reveal only empty sockets. He was gritting his teeth in anger.

"Well then ya don' got ta give me any," Tavish said, which didn't seem to calm the Oni down at all.

Behind him, Yamame groaned, her face in her hands.

"While that's a generous offer," the blind Oni said, "Here's our counter-offer: _get him_!" As one, all the Oni in the bar stood up and ran at Tavish. The majority of them had some sort of scar or injury, some superficial, some fairly serious. Tavish, though jealousy-laden, was not suicidal, and turned to open the door behind him, Yamame following behind. As he opened the door however, he ran right into Parsee, who'd managed to stealthily make it to the front door of the bar. They fell over, and Yamame, who had been right behind Tavish, tripped and fell on top of them.

"Aargh you stupid idiot," Parsee said, yelling to be heard over the din of fighting Oni. "Why'd you have to leave right then?" She looked behind him to see a crowd of Oni rushing towards them, and began to struggle harder, eyes widening in fear. "Get off get off get off get off!" She pushed Tavish to the side and hurried up. "No way in heaven I'm taking it back now!" She ran off.

"Taking it back?" Yamame muttered to herself. Then her eyes lit up and she struggled to her feet. "Parseee! Get back here," she yelled, running after her.

Tavish got to his feet saw the chaos in the square, and heard the crowd of Oni approaching behind him. "I still want me drink," he muttered to himself, and ran off into the chaos. He also got out his sticky launcher and attempted to shoot back into the crowd. Instead of the small spiky balls he was used to, however, he instead shot a small glowing ball that floated in midair where he'd shot it. He nearly stopped, but managed to force himself to keep going. "What the bloody hell happened to my sticky launcher," he thought, affronted.

The Oni running after him shouted, "he's using danmaku," and ran around the ball. "But he sucks at it!" They laughed. Tavish looked behind him as he ran, dodging through the chaos. When he saw a lot of Oni clustered around the ball, he pulled the detonation trigger on the launcher, and the ball exploded into a bunch of tiny, glowing pellets. The ones closest to the blast yelled in surprise and fell down, causing some of those running behind to trip over them. "Those things explode!" one of those still following yelled. Tavish grinned and began shooting them behind him and detonating them at random. He was rewarded with screams of surprise and some thuds and grunts of people falling over. He continued this, dodging most of the chaos of the fight and knocking out as many of the Oni chasing him as he could, though he did get hit by a stray bullet occasionally. Surprisingly, they didn't hurt much, only stung a bit. He ended up making a giant circle and heading back into the bar that he had emptied, planning to take some of the booze that was lying around. As he entered, however, he found that the bar wasn't empty, as he had thought. The blind Oni stood in the middle of it, facing the entranceway as he came in.

"Hmph," he said, hearing the Demoman's (relatively quiet) footsteps enter, then took a swig of his bottle. "You're pretty good, I'll admit. Didn't think those guys would fail so miserably."

Tavish scoffed. "They were no better than wee kiddies. I coulda taken them on with me eyepatch over me good eye!" He walked past tables, picking up bottles and drinking whatever booze was left in them.

The Oni frowned. "I suppose you might have been able to, especially with that fight going on outside. Crossfire makes a great cover, doesn't it? Especially against those too drunk to dodge properly."

"Ach, well," Tavish said, rubbing his head awkwardly, "ya use all the advantages ya can get, righ'?" He took a swig of a half-empty sake bottle he'd found lying around.

"I suppose that is what you humans do. Take advantage of our trusting nature, lie to our faces, and then do things like this," he said, pointing to his face. "Is that right?"

"Wha'? Hold on, hold on, I'd never do something like tha'. Unless ya were trying ta kill me, maybe. An' even then I'd probably just break your arms an' legs or somethin'." He finished the bottle and threw it behind him, picking up a new one off the floor.

"I don't believe you," the Oni said. "And I think this conversation has gone on long enough," he threw the bottle he'd been drinking from at Tavish with pinpoint accuracy. Tavish dodged it, then watched in horror as it broke on a wall behind him.

"What tha hell do ya think you're doin'? That was perfectly good alcohol, you bloody idiot," he yelled, turning to see the Oni charging at him.

The Oni looked affronted. "What kind of Oni do you take me for? It was empty already, you fool."

Tavish was relieved. "Oh. Well alrigh' then." He finished up his bottle and threw it towards the Oni, who swatted it out of the air before punching Tavish. Tavish flew through the air, landed on a stone table, then slid off the end of it. The Oni grinned vindictively before he heard a telltale gulping noise, followed by a loud belch. Tavish stood, arms full of bottles, and yelled, "Cheers, mate," before taking another swig of one of them. The Oni, though slightly impressed, growled and began to run after Tavish, who began running around the table, tossing empty bottles back at the Oni as he ran. Most he either dodged or swatted out of the air, but one hit him in the leg, causing him to limp. Tavish seized the opportunity to stop and attempt to turn and use his sticky launcher, but slipped on a bottle and fell down on his back. He attempted to stand back up, but he was so drunk at this point that standing was a rather complex process, and by the time he managed to get back to his feet the Oni was right next to him, waiting. As soon as Tavish was back on his feet, the Oni grabbed him by the head and threw him all the way over to the other wall, which he hit was a crunching noise. Though he couldn't feel it, he guessed he'd broken something, and a quick glance at his right foot told him that he probably shouldn't try moving on it any time soon. Since he was immobilized, he shot as many sticky bombs as he could to make a perimeter around himself, hoping to keep the approaching Oni at bay. The Oni limped slowly over to where Tavish had fallen, picking up a miraculously unshattered bottle along the way and taking a swig.

As he approached, he began speaking. "You humans haven't changed at all, have you? Still preying on our willingness to believe anything. Still acting so entitled, acting like we're stupid, drunken louts, huh?" Tavish frowned at this.

"Wai', wha'? _I'm_ the stupid, drunken lout. Tha's _my_ job! Tha's mine an' ya can't have it!"

The Oni looked confused for a second, then shook his head. "Your trickery won't work on me. I've experienced it too much to be fooled again. Never again." He took a step into Tavish's perimeter. Tavish detonated the stickies, sending tons of danmaku shrapnel at the Oni. Since he was unable to dodge, the danmaku hit the Oni all over his body, causing him to collapse in pain.

"Argh, damn it, damn it, damn it." He tried to move his arms to crawl towards Tavish, but could barely move his arms. "I'm so close. My revenge…just…a few more steps." He managed to grab an empty mug from the ground, and with a monumental amount of effort sat up. He pulled his arm back, ready to throw, when Tavish, who'd been drinking from a miraculously unbroken saucer he'd found on the ground, held up a hand.

"Hold-hic-hold on. I got a question. Why-why didn' ya attack me while I was-I was-hic-down back there. Ya had a-hic-a perfect chance."

The Oni, who at this point looked like a blurry red blob to Tavish, snorted. "I'd never stoop to you human's level. If I can't-rrrgh-if I can't beat a human in a fair fight, with equal footing, then I don't deserve to call myself an Oni. But now," he said, sounding pleased, "we're still on equal footing. And I can finally kill one of you goddamned humans." He drew his arm back, preparing to throw the mug at Tavish hard enough to crush his skull.

"I don't think you'll get the chance," Tavish said, taking a swig and emptying another bottle. "Not if those three blobs behind ya have anything to say about it."

The Oni felt a hand grab his arm, and looked back to see Yuugi staring down at him.

"That's enough, Urami," she said, taking the mug out of the blind Oni's hand, as Yamame dragged an annoyed-looking Parsee over towards Tavish.

"Let go, Yuugi! Let me kill him!"

"He's not them," she said, sadly.

"He's close enough! He's a goddamn human, Yuugi! You know what they're like! You were there!"

She nodded. "Yes, yes I was there. I know what they did to you, to us. But I also know what they're like now. And they're nothing like their forefathers. They're coexisting with youkai now, with creatures like us."

"I don't care! No matter how much they change, they're still humans. _He's_ still a human," Urami said, pointing towards Tavish, who was staring into Parsee's eyes again as the bridge princess removed her jealousy charm from him.

"Did you know," Yuugi said, after a pause. "That he's not even from here? He's an outsider. Not even from Japan, I think."

Urami paused for a second, but then shook his head. "So what? He still acts like they did, coming in here and thinking he's entitled to what we have, thinking he could trick us just like they did!"

"That," Yuugi said, frowning, "wasn't really his fault."

"How could it not be his fault? They're his own actions, damn it!"

Yuugi sighed. "Yes and no." She glanced over at Parsee, who was rolling her eyes while Yamame lectured her and Tavish looked on, confused. "You ever meet Parsee before?"

"Huh? Of course I have. Who hasn't?"

"Well, he hadn't, and as such, didn't know about her ability."

"What, that jealousy thing? How's that explain," he began, before pausing, realization dawning. "Oh."

"Yeah," Yuugi said, frowning. "Apparently he said something to piss her off, and in retaliation, she made him jealous of all the booze we had. To be honest, I'm surprised he kept enough sense not to just try and steal from everyone with alcohol at once."

Urami grimaced, then, slowly lowered his arm to his side. "Damn it." A few tears rolled down his face, dropping to the floor. "Damn it. Then get him out of here, ok? Just…just get out."

"Urami," Yuugi began, before he cut her off.

"What did I say, huh? GET OUT OF HERE," he roared. Yamame, who'd put Tavish over her shoulder, tensed with shock briefly, before following Parsee out the door.

"Alright, Urami," Yuugi said, standing up. "For what it's worth," she said, turning towards the door, "I'm sorry we never got them back for what they did."

Urami snorted. "Not as much as I am."

Yuugi left the bar, shutting the door behind her. Outside was a scene of chaos, with Oni and some youkai sprawled all over the courtyard, most groaning in pain, but a fair number were unconscious. Yamame, still supporting Tavish, was waiting for her just outside the door. "Parsee ran off," she said. "Basically saying 'I fixed him, so what more do you want?'"

Yuugi frowned, then sighed. "I guess I should've expected that." She scratched the back of her head. "This is my fault," she said, looking at Tavish. "I never should have let you walk around here unattended."

"It's no'-hic-no' your fault, Yuugi," Tavish said, looking at the ground. "I'm tha one tha' insisted. 'Sides, I'm no' a baby. I can take care o' meself. Or I thought I-hic-I could, anyway."

"Well, there's not much you can do to protect against Parsee. Especially if you don't know about her power." Yuugi sighed. "I guess we're all kind at fault here."

"What'd I do tha' made tha' guy," Tavish said, pointing at the bar, "so angry?"

Yuugi frowned. "It's not really my story to tell. But suffice to say, it has to do with how he lost his eyes."

"Oh. Alrigh' then." An uncomfortable silence fell, broken only by the groans of people on the ground. Tavish looked around, then spoke up. "How'd ya know where I was, by the way?"

"Oh, that was me," Yamame said. "As I was chasing after Parsee, I ran into Yuugi coming back towards the square to investigate all the shouting. I told her what was going on, and she helped me catch Parsee and convinced her to come back. Then we ran back here as fast as we could."

"An' ya said Parsee had-hic-had made me super jealous or somethin'?"

"Yeah," Yamame said, nodding. "That's her power. I guess she made you really jealous of all the drinks the Oni had in the marketplace."

"Tha's weird. Does everybody here have some weird power?"

"Pretty much," Yamame said, matter-of-factly.

"Is it conta-contagious? Cause me sticky launcher," he said, waving it around, "'s actin' all weird."

Yamame looked at Yuugi, who seemed like she was lost in thought, and answered, "No, our powers aren't contagious. But what do you mean it's acting weird?"

"Well when I was-hic-was running from those Oni, I tried using it to slow them down, just blow up stuff aroun' 'em a bit, scare 'em off, ya know? But it fired these-hic-these floaty, glowin' orb things that they called dawn-mock-you or somethin', I dunno. And when they blew up, they became a whole bunch a' little flyin' glowy things that stung when they hit ya."

"Hold on, you mean that thing," Yamame said, pointing to the launcher, "shot danmaku?"

"Yeah, tha's what they called it," Tavish said, turning his head towards Yamame, who wrinkled her nose at his alcohol breath. "Wha's that?"

Yamame frowned, puzzled. "Well, it's what we usually use to solve disputes here, it's basically a whole bunch of non-lethal bullets that the two parties send at each other until one collapses. It's basically to prevent the constant back and forth killings between humans and youkai that used to happen."

"But-hic-but why's me sticky launcher shootin' it now? Where'd me explosions go?" he said, looking distraught. "I _need_ me explosions!"

"I-I don't know," Yamame said, holding up her free hand placatingly. "I really have no idea! Maybe Lady Satori would know but-" she began.

"No, I have no idea why that would happen," said a voice from Yamame's side, causing Yamame to jump into the air, which in turn caused her to yank Tavish's arm into the air, dragging the rest of him along with it.

"L-l-lady Satori," Yamame stammered out, while Tavish grumbled about probably having a dislocated shoulder now. "Are you taking lessons from your sister?"

Satori gave a small smile. "Unfortunately, my sister is rarely in the mood to teach anything. And her style of sneaking is unteachable, anyway. But I still know the traditional sneaking methods back from, well, from the outside," she said, her smile turning sad for a second.

"Ah…right," Yamame said, looking down. "I'm-"

"It's alright, it's alright," Satori said, waving her hand dismissively. "The past is the past, after all."

Yuugi, who had been startled out of her thoughts by the sudden arrival of Satori, spoke up. "Hi, Satori," she said, giving a small smile. "What brings you here?"

"Hello, Ms. Yuugi," Satori said, nodding her head slightly. "Some of my pets told me there was a large fight happening in the marketplace, all centered around a human, so I thought I'd come and try to put a stop to it, but," she gestured at the large mass of groaning bodies in the marketplace, "it seems I was too late. And I guess this must be the human who caused it all," she said, standing in front of Tavish. "You must be the Demoman."

Tavish started. "Wha'? How the bloody hell do ya know tha'?" His eye narrowed. "Are ya-"

Satori laughed. "No, I'm not the one behind this." Tavish opened his mouth again. "And no, I'm not a witch. And I know because I'm reading your mind. Yes, it is kind of like Parsee's jealousy manipulation. Oh," she said, frowning. "Sorry. When I really want to solve a problem, I can forget how off-putting it is if you're not used to it." Tavish looked at her, seeming annoyed.

"Well, at least let me speak, will ya?"

"Right," Satori said, looking slightly embarrassed. "Anyway, the reason I know who you are is because I believe I found one of your teammates."

"Ya did? Which one?" Tavish asked, excitement overtaking his drunkenness.

"Well, let me put it this way," she said, "he attacked one of my subordinates for not knowing what America was."

Tavish slammed his forehead into his palm. "Ah, damn it Soldier…"

Yuugi and Yamame looked slightly confused. "Wait, he attacked someone? Are they alright?" Yuugi asked.

"What's America?" Yamame asked.

Satori sighed. "Well, Okuu should recover pretty soon, she was just caught by a rather large amount of danmaku at once. And apparently, America's a country in the outside world."

"I'm sorry 'bout him," Tavish said. "He's kinda-hic-kinda crazy."

"Well, it's not you fault," Satori said. "Besides, he may turn out to be kind of fun," she said, grinning slyly.

Tavish recoiled. "Tha' just don't sound righ' coming from a young girl like-"

Satori held up her hand and sighed. "That's absolutely _not_ what I was talking about. Though I'm a lot older than I look, but I meant something else entirely."

"Well tha's a relief," Tavish said, shuddering. "Anyway, can I go and pick 'im up?"

Satori frowned and shook her head. "No, not yet, I think."

Tavish and Yuugi narrowed their eyes at her, while Yamame just looked somewhat lost. "Why keep them separated?" Yuugi asked, thinking back to some times in the old days.

"Yeah, why no'?"

"Because he still owes me for hurting my subordinate," Satori said. "But," she said, raising a hand to stem off the objections, "I will let you see him. However, there's something you should know."

"And wha's that?" Tavish asked.

"He thinks he's died and entered purgatory."

Tavish looked at her blankly. "Wha'?" was all he managed to get out.


	17. Chapter 17: Heavy's Intro to the Village

New chapter time! Unfortunately, it comes with some bad news: I think I'm gonna have to move this to a once a week thing for a bit, sorry...writer's block's been hitting me pretty hard recently, and I want to try to build back up my buffer. Hopefully it won't last too much longer. But in any case, thank you for reading!

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><p>Previously on The Nine RED Men Incident: The Heavy Chapters. The Heavy, after being taken to Gensokyou by Merasmus' portal, quickly ran into Cirno and Dai. After a rough start which was diffused with magical mittens, they decided to go to the Human Village.<p>

That's um...that's actually pretty much it. Wow, that was shorter than I remembered it being...I mean...um...

*ahem* We now return you to The Nine RED Men Incident: The Heavy Chapters.

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><p>As they walked, Dai tried to start up a conversation with the Heavy. "So, you seem pretty unsurprised by all this."<p>

The Heavy shrugged. "Is like this every Halloween. Soldier does something stupid, magic things ensue. At least this time Heavy keeps his own head."

"Wait, you had a different head?"

"One Halloween team's heads became birds. Was confusing. And awkward for meal times."

"That's…weird. How did it get fixed?"

"Halloween ended. Medic say magic wore off. Though some full moons birds come back. Medic say full moons probably trigger residual magic, but he didn't get chance to test." He sighed. "But that not really important. Important thing is Heavy must find teammates and crush wizard."

"What does this 'Merasmus' look like, anyway? We won't be able to recognize him even if we see him, if we don't know what he looks like."

"Merasmus is…wizard-y," the Heavy said, struggling. "He glows green, and wears robe and puny hat that looks like skull with one eye rolling around in it. He also have staff. It look like wooden pole."

"I don't think I've seen anyone like that before, sorry," Dai said.

"I have," Cirno said, having slowed down to let them catch up. "At least I think I have," she continued, putting her hand on her chin.

"You see wizard?" the Heavy asked. He cracked his knuckles. "Tell Heavy where so he can _crush_ puny wizard."

Cirno hovered in place for a few minutes, progressively getting more and more frustrated, until eventually she looked up, frowning, and shook her head. "Sorry, I can't remember where."

The Heavy sighed and patted her on the head. "It ok. Heavy will find wizard eventually."

They walked in relative silence until they reached the crest of a hill and saw the human village spread out below them. Despite its status as a "village," it seemed fairly large, with a plaza (which Dai said doubled as an open-air market), a decent-sized school building, a number of small shrines, and a residential district that stretched on for a ways. There were also some farms scattered around the outskirts of the village. It reminded Heavy of home, though not as snow-covered or prone to bear attacks. He smiled.

As they approached the gates, Cirno began acting fidgety. The Heavy became curious. "What is wrong, blue fairy?"

"N-nothing! Nothing's wrong!"

"She's a bit worried she might run into someone she's pranked recently," Dai whispered into his ear.

The Heavy frowned. "How many people has fairy annoyed recently?"

Dai sighed. "Well, you already know about the whole calling Marisa and Alice wizards, but she's also thrown some ice at Reimu, caused Reisen to slip while bringing medicine to the stall in the village, put ice on one of Nitori's prototypes causing it to become brittle and break, caused Byakuren's tea to freeze as she was about to drink it, and she's been freezing any frogs she finds at the lake."

"Last one not seem like prank," the Heavy said.

"Well," Dai said, sighing, "it tend to piss off the frog-loving goddess when you go around freezing her friends."

"Ah. You must always have things in your hands, helping her out."

"Things in…you mean 'you must always have my hands full?' Yeah she can be a pain. But she's been my friend for a long time, and that's just how she is," Dai said, smiling fondly.

The Heavy chuckled. "She is lucky to have you."

As the Heavy and Dai had been talking, they'd passed a couple farmers who'd started chatting with Cirno, asking who the big guy was and what that flash in the sky was earlier. They seemed to get along with Cirno pretty well, like she was their children's best friend.

"Ciiiiirno," Dai cried, once she and the Heavy had reached the guard post. "We're gonna enter without you if you don't hurry up!"

"Ooooook! Be right there," Cirno yelled back, before giving a hasty apology to the farmers and rushing over. As she approached, they could tell she was still trembling slightly.

"You could just stay out here and talk with Yona and Chi," Dai said innocently. "I'm sure no one will think less of you."

Cirno narrowed her eyes. "You're making fun of me, aren't you? Well, I'll show you," she said and rushed off past the guards, one of whom shook his head and laughed while the other, younger, one stared up at the Heavy.

"Y'know that wasn't really necessary, Dai," the older one said. He had an eyepatch over his right eye, and held a spear lightly in his hand. "She'd never back out of something."

"Yeah, I know," Dai said, smiling. "But now she's not gonna be jumpy the whole time."

"True enough," the guard said. He joined his young companion in looking up at the Heavy. "I don't think I've seen you before." He tightened his grip on the spear slightly. "Who're you then?"

"I am Heavy Weapons Guy," he said.

When he said nothing further, Dai spoke up. "He's an outsider Cirno found over by the lake."

The guard whistled. "Hooo…It's been a while since we've seen an outsider here. He's a big one too. What do you eat out there, bears?" he asked, chuckling.

"Sometimes," the Heavy replied. "When available."

"Ah," the guard said, his chuckles fading. "Right."

"It's ok," Dai said. "I know he seems scary, but he's been nice to Cirno and I so far."

"Hmm…well I do trust your judgment Dai. But you haven't really known him that long, have you?"

"Well no," Dai said, frowning. "But he's had plenty of opportunities to be mean, and he hasn't been so far. Besides, he's just a human, he can't be more trouble than some of the youkai who come by."

The guard sighed. "Well, I suppose you're right. But if anything happens, it's coming down on your head, ok Dai?"

"That's fine! I'll make sure nothing happens. Isn't that right Heavy?" The Heavy rolled his eyes at her. "That's how outsiders say 'yes,'" she told the guard.

"Sure it is," he said, and waved them through. As they walked into the village, they heard a soft thump followed by a groan. "What were you doing just staring like that, huh? Fat lot of good you were."

"But he was so big," a timid voice replied.

"So what? There're smaller youkai out there who are much more terrifying. Look, you've gotta get more confident, what would you do if a youkai actually attacked, huh?"

"That's not gonna happen," was all they caught before the voices became too quiet to hear.

"What was that about youkai attack?" Heavy whispered to Dai.

"It's…nothing," Dai said, looking somewhat sad. "I mean, before, humans and youkai like us fairies fought a lot, but it hasn't been like that in a while. Ever since the spellcard rules were implemented, things have been pretty peaceful."

The Heavy wasn't sure he was convinced, but Dai looked uncomfortable, so he grunted and left it at that.

As they walked through the village, people stopped to stare at the Heavy as he walked past. It was a strange sight, seeing the towering hulk of a man walking alongside the kid-sized fairy, especially considering that nobody knew who this man was. Even stranger was the way he was dressed, the likes of which no one had really seen before. Especially the strange belt he kept slung across his body that jangled whenever he took a step. Word spread quickly, and it didn't take long until there was a large group of people following him and gossiping amongst themselves. The young children took turns seeing who could get closest to him before he turned around, causing them to flee. Once, two people were so surprised at his appearance the Heavy ran into them, since they seemed too stunned to move out of the way.

"Heavy feel like circus attraction," he muttered under his breath after turning to see the third kid run back to his peers after letting out a small squeak. "How much further to this Keine person?"

"Not too far," Dai said, laughing. "Though at this rate, she might come to meet us."

"Hey Dai, there you are," said a voice they recognized as Cirno's. They turned to see her coming parting the crowd, another woman in tow. "It took so long to convince Keine to come along, and then we had no idea where you were, and then someone ran up yelling about a strange newcomer, and I figured it must be that guy, so we ran over."

The woman had long whitish-blue hair, and had on a lacy dark blue dress that reached down to about the middle of her shin and had short white sleeves, and a red ribbon around her neck. The woman had her hands on her knees, and was panting and out of breath. "C-Cirno," she said, gasping for air, "did-did we really need to get here this fast? Not everyone has as much energy as you."

"Well, I thought they might be gone if we didn't get here quickly," she said. "Besides, you were looking suspicious, so I didn't think you'd come if I didn't drag you."

"Well, I…" she began, before sighing. "I suppose you're kind of right. But I still would have come, even if I was suspicious." She looked up, having caught her breath, to see the Heavy staring at her. "Oh." She paused. "Well you are a big one, aren't you?" She shook her head to clear it, and bowed slightly. "I am Keine Kamishirasawa, the teacher of this village. It is a pleasure to meet you," she said, straightening up.

"Is honor to meet you," the Heavy said, bowing. "I am Heavy." He finished his bow and pointed towards her head, upon which rested an intricate hat, with a long ribbon tied to the top of it. "Your hat is impressive."

Keine frowned, scrutinizing his face for any sign she was being made fun of, but despite her best efforts, she saw none. "Hmm…you're not joking, are you?"

The Heavy looked affronted. "Of course not! Hats are status. More intricate hat, more status. With such a hat, you must be of highest status."

Keine smiled gently. "In that case, thank you for the complement. A lot of people," she glared at Cirno, who looked away whistling innocently, "make fun of it, but this is the traditional hat worn by those in my…position. It is a pleasure to meet someone who appreciates it. But anyway," she said, looking at the Heavy inquisitively, "I hear you come from outside the border?"

"That is what Heavy has been told," the Heavy said, nodding. "Heavy and teammates fell-" he began, before there was an uproar from the crowd, all discussing what his teammates could possibly be like, and where they could have ended up.

Keine looked at the Heavy apologetically, and said, "Would you rather continue this someplace with less people?"

The Heavy nodded, relieved. "Please." Keine led him, along with Cirno and Dai, back towards the school building, the crowd following behind until they reached the school gates and Keine told them to get back to what they were doing, ending by saying that they might get the chance to see some of his teammates if they waited nearer to the town entrance. Some people stuck around, but since they were still afraid of what Keine might do if they entered school property, they stayed outside, trying to hear snatches of conversation.

Once most of them had dispersed, Keine led the Heavy, Dai, and Cirno to an empty classroom, and took a seat behind the desk at the front of the room. "Sorry about the fuss," she said, grabbing a teapot from a cabinet and filling it with water, then putting it on a gas burner. "We don't get a lot of new people here, so whenever anyone new shows up it's a pretty big deal. Especially someone who, well, stands out as much as you do."

"Heavy understands. Was like this when first met team as well," the Heavy said, trying to sit on a student desk. It began to creak dangerously, so he simply leaned against a wall.

"Yes, about these 'teammates' of yours," Keine said, searching for some tea leaves, "you said they came with you?" The Heavy nodded. "How many?"

"Well, Heavy only saw three other teammates come, but wouldn't be surprised if all followed. So eight. Possibly puny wizard Merasmus too," the Heavy said, clenching and unclenching his fists.

"Merasmus?" Keine said, confused.

"Merasmus is reason we fell," the Heavy said. "He created portal, portal sucked us in."

"Hmm, I see," Keine said thoughtfully. "So you're not here of your own volition. I assume you want to find a way back?"

"Yes. Though Heavy wouldn't mind finding Merasmus too," he said, cracking his knuckles. He relaxed his shoulders and hung his head. "Teammates first, though."

"A good sentiment," Keine said, nodding. "And I'd like to help you with that. But first, I have a question for you." She narrowed her eyes. "Do you or your teammates pose a threat to the continued existence of this village?"

The Heavy folded his arms in front of his chest, his eyes closed. "Heavy cannot guarantee responses of others," he said, after a while. "Heavy is not them. But, Heavy, at least, wants village to exist. And unless village attacks Heavy or Heavy's friends, Heavy will not attack village."

Keine stared at the Heavy for a moment, looking for any indication that he was lying. Eventually, she nodded. "Alright. I'll accept that answer." As soon as she finished speaking, the tea began to boil, and Keine and Dai took a couple cups from a nearby cupboard and poured teas for everyone. "So," Keine said, taking a sip of her tea, "I will try to help you out as best I can."

The Heavy took a sip of the tea, and made an expression at the taste. "Heavy thank you."

"The only problem is I'm not sure how much I can do," Keine said, bowing her head. "Without any knowledge of where they are, we have no real way of knowing where to start."

"Well, I kinda thought they'd probably be either coming here or being taken to the Hakurei shrine," Dai said, taking a sip of her tea as Cirno made frost drawings on the windowpane out of boredom.

"That's probably true, Dai," Keine said, nodding her head. "But I haven't been told about anyone coming here recently. I don't know about the shrine, though I would assume someone's contacted her about the situation. We might want to try heading there," she said, as Cirno, getting bored of making frost drawings, flew over to the Heavy and started poking around him. "The only problem," Keine said, letting out a slight laugh and turning towards the Heavy, "is that I'm worried she'd automatically blame you for the incident and try to resolve it by attacking you."

The Heavy raised an eyebrow. "She would attack me? She must be brave woman to attack Heavy."

"Well, she's pretty much invincible," Dai said, while Cirno mumbled something about "mean stupid-heads." The Heavy took another sip of his tea, and reached into his pocket, pulling out his sandvich. As he did so, a piece of paper fluttered to the ground, unnoticed by him.

"But is best lead for teammates' location?" he said, through a mouthful of sandvich, as Cirno reached down and picked up the piece of paper.

"I suppose it is," Keine said, nodding reluctantly. "I can take you to the shrine as soon as we're done with the tea. I suppose-" she said, before being interrupted.

"Hey, what's an 'S'-'P'-'Y'?" Cirno asked, spelling the name with difficulty.

The Heavy looked at Cirno, surprised. "How does blue fairy know name of teammate?"

"It's on here," Cirno said, waving the paper she'd picked up around. "It fell out of your pocket."

"Let Heavy see," the Heavy said, reaching out and grabbing the paper, making Cirno pout. His eyes scanned over the paper, as his expression changed from confusion to surprise to anger. "Well," he said once he was finished, "Heavy now know where one teammate is. And he need Heavy's help."


	18. Chapter 18: Engineer's Repairs

Hi everybody! So...I'm sorry. I totally got distracted by Thanksgiving and stuff and...didn't update when I said I would. In addition, I'm still failing to chip away at the giant wall of writer's blocks in my brain, so I'm still making incredibly slow progress. But in any case, thank you so much for reading and putting up with my schedule slips.

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><p>Previously on The Nine Red Men Incident: Engineer Chapters<p>

The Engineer, after landing in Gensokyou, awoke to find his robotic hand being investigated by Nitori. After reaching an agreement with her that she could take it apart in exchange for letting him use her workshop to fix his PDA, which had broken in the crash, they set off for her workshop. Upon reaching there, they found Hina waiting, who removed his misfortune, seemingly finding out that he had died multiple times. Before she could ask about it, Nitori sent him down an elevator to her workshop, asking him not to touch any prototypes, while she went to talk with Hina.

We now return you to The Nine Red Men Incident: Engineer Chapters

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><p>After a few minutes, the elevator reached the bottom floor and the doors opened onto a gigantic workshop and warehouse. Dell stepped out and saw large piles of metal all over the place. Looking carefully, he saw that they were, as Nitori had claimed, organized by type. The pile closest to him seemed to consist of iron, and, peering closer, he could see that it mostly consisted of shovel and hoe blades. A little to the right of that, he could see a large stack of copper, which contained a few doorknobs and some tea kettle parts, along with other objects he couldn't recognize. Briefly, he contemplated exaggerating the amount of metal he'd need so he could make a few hats, but couldn't bring himself to take advantage of Nitori's hospitality like that. As he walked through the workshop, mountains of different metals and parts towering over him, he saw a few areas roped off with a strange type of tape. Curious, he walked over to the closest one and found that the area had largely been cleared of metal, and in its place sat what looked like an ordinary cardboard box. Strewn around it were a variety of blowtorches and mallets, and he even saw a couple of wrenches. What she could possibly have been doing to the cardboard box with them escaped him, but he assumed it was one of the "prototypes" she'd warned him to stay away from. He couldn't deny he was curious, but he tore himself away. Fixing his PDA came first, after all.<p>

Eventually, after a lot of wandering, he came upon the main area of her workshop. It was a large, clear area, with the largest variety of tools Dell had ever seen placed in a circle around a central table. Excited, he ran over to the tools and began looking them over one by one. He found wrenches of all types and sizes (he even found one that looked exactly like his own monkey wrench), drills, a few blowtorches (he could see the spaces that presumably were normally occupied by the ones next to the cardboard box), and even some tools he didn't recognize, which had symbols etched into the metal and seemed to constantly be warm to the touch, despite the chill of the room. He guessed they were generators of some kind, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out how they worked. In addition, a vehicle that reminded him of a boom lift was parked near the work area, presumably so that Nitori could get at parts that were near the tops of the stacks, though how she possibly operated it by herself he couldn't tell.

Once he'd examined all the tools, he began taking out the ones he thought he'd need. A screwdriver of course, a soldering iron in case the circuitry was damaged, a mallet to hammer out the casing correctly, and some glass cutting and polishing tools to get the glass cover correct. He carefully unscrewed the back of his PDA to reveal the tangled mess of wires and solder behind it. After examining it closely, he found that the majority of the circuitry was undamaged, there were a few disconnected wires here and there, but that could be easily fixed. It took him all of five minutes (most of which was spent figuring out what to plug the soldering iron into, as he couldn't find any outlets around, eventually he found it just heated up on its own somehow) to reconnect the wires. He then moved on to the casing, which had a large dent in the side that was crushing the buttons. He disconnected the wires from the display screen and all the selection buttons, then took all of the circuitry out so he could try and hammer the dent out, and see how many of the buttons needed to be replaced. Looking inside, he saw that some of the connectors on the bottom of the buttons had been broken, and the dent in the casing had warped a few of them into such a shape that they were useless. He pried the buttons out of their spots one by one and put them aside. While he was there, he checked the display, and saw with relief that only the glass covering the display had been broken, not the display itself. For that he was grateful, as wiring a new display would have taken a very long time. He pulled the broken pieces of glass out from the PDA and piled them on the workbench. He then checked the dented metal, to see if it could be bent back into shape or if it would be too brittle to continue working. Giving it a test tap with the mallet, he found it to be serviceable, so he began to search for something to heat up the metal and make it more malleable. After a bit of thought, he decided he might as well try one of the reactors he'd found, and held it against the warped metal until it was hot to the touch. Once it was hot enough, he used the mallet to hammer it back into shape, and then waited for it to cool. While he waited, he searched the workshop for some buttons. Eventually, after seeing a few other closed-off areas, he found a small pile, and, searching through it, took a handful of small rectangular buttons that he hoped would do. If necessary he could cut them down to fit, he mostly just hoped the connectors were the right size. While he was out looking, he also found a small glass pane a few piles away from the button pile, which he could use to cover the display.

He returned to the workbench, parts in hand, and began to test whether the replacement buttons could work. To his relief, he had at least one button of each size he needed, though some were a bit big, and he had to cut them slightly smaller so that they'd fit. After getting all the buttons into the appropriate shape, he snapped them into the frame (which had cooled down enough not to melt or warp the buttons themselves). Looking at it after he'd placed the buttons in, he let out a sad sigh. It would probably work, but it looked like a mess, some of the buttons were taller than the others, some had somewhat jagged edges where he'd had to cut them, and they were all completely random colors (he'd even been forced to use some blue ones). He supposed he could have spent more time trying to get buttons that matched, but it hadn't seemed that important at the time. Shaking his head, he began to work on getting the glass into the right shape. He used a marker to copy the correct shape onto the glass, and then, after spending some time finding a glass cutter and a straight edge, cut out the shape. He then found some sandpaper and sanded the edges, before placing it into the PDA frame and screwing it into place, the display behind it. Then, he soldered the wires and circuitry back into place and screwed the back on again.

"Phew," he said, wiping his brow. "Glad to have you back, buddy," he said, rubbing the screen with his finger. He put it back in his pocket, and began cleaning up the workbench area. After all, if it'd started out so neat, he figured Nitori would probably like it to be in the same shape when he finished. Thinking of Nitori, he realized she hadn't come down since he'd started. It must have taken him at least an hour and a half to fix the PDA, so had she been talking to Hina all that time? That seemed unlikely, but if they were friends, he supposed they could still be talking. Considering the amount of protectiveness Nitori showed for her inventions, however, he didn't understand why she wouldn't have come down to talk, so she could make sure he didn't do anything with them. He shook his head and tried to clear it from his mind, at least until he'd put away the tools.

As he put away the screwdriver, which was the last of the tools, he heard a loud clattering noise come from a bit further into the warehouse. He ran towards the noise, which seemed to come from a corridor created by towering piles of nuts and bolts on one side, and a few piles of rarer metals, a small pile of gold, and a slightly larger pile of silver. He nearly slipped on some bolts that had fallen and scattered on the floor, but managed to stop himself and work his way to the other side without injury. As he stepped on the other side of the bolts, the floor felt less solid, and he looked down to see his foot hovering in mid-air. "What the-" he said, before frowning. "Spy, is that you?" He felt a hand tap his foot, and, realizing he was probably stepping on their chest, he moved his foot back and waited for the person to catch their breath. Eventually, the person spoke up.

"Wh-who's 'Spy,'" said a voice Dell recognized.

"Nitori?" he said, shocked. "Why in the world are you invisible?"

"Ah heh heh heh," she said, removing her invisibility field. "I was, well, uh," she began to stammer, before she looked away, "I was testing an invention of mine."

"An invention?" Dell said, curious.

"It's an invisibility field," she said. "I'd only ever used it on natives to Gensokyou, so I kind of wanted to see if it would work on people from somewhere else." She continued not to look him in the eye.

Dell raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Really?" he said, offering a hand to help her up. "Why would it be any different?"

"Well, it works as a combination of magic and science, so I thought that if you were from the outside the magic it uses might not work on you, or have a different effect or something," she said, standing up on her own. "Though I guess that wasn't the case."

Dell let his hand drop to his side, frowning. "I suppose not. Though why'd you have to do it in secret like that?"

"Well, I'd be able to tell if it wasn't working pretty quickly, wouldn't I?" Nitori said, brushing herself off and beginning to clean up the spilled bolts.

"I guess that's true," Dell said, frowning at her and rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "But-"

"A-anyway," she said, seemingly ignoring his worries. "Who's this 'Spy' you thought I was? Can he go invisible too?"

"Ah? Oh, yeah." Dell said, distractedly. "Yeah, he's a teammate of mine. He's got these watches that can make him invisible. I wish he'd let me take a look at 'em, but he's very secretive with 'em. Guess he's worried I wouldn't be able to put it back together again or somethin'." He began picking up some bolts as well.

"Wait, so it's a purely science based personal cloaking system?" Nitori said, sounding interested. "That's incredible. Magic is the only way I could get mine to work properly. I'd love to see that."

Dell snorted. "Good luck. As I said, he won't let anyone near 'em."

Nitori grinned. "Well, I do know a pretty good thief, er, I mean 'borrower,'" she said, making air quotes, "who owes me a couple favors."

Dell smiled. "Well good luck to you then. If you get your hands on one I want to be there for the disassembly."

"Ah," Nitori said, grin slipping from her face, "right, yeah." She put the bolts she'd collected back on the pile. Dell followed suit.

"Hey Nitori," he said, looking worried, "What happened with Hina?"

"H-huh?" Nitori said, looking around uncomfortably. "W-what are you talking about?"

"Nitori, you've been jumpy and on-edge since talking with her," Dell said, frowning. "Something must have happened. Did you two get into a fight or somethin'?"

"What? Of course not." Nitori said, frowning.

"Then what happened? What's made you so," he paused, realization hitting him. "Oh. I see," he said sadly.

"H-huh? What do you mean?" Nitori said.

"That's why you were invisible too, wasn't it? Because Hina told you about what she saw in my 'misfortunes.'" Nitori was looking away and sweating nervously. "You're afraid of me, aren't you?" he said.

"N-no!" She looked back towards him, when she said this. "Not really, at least. I mean, to be honest, there's not much you could do to me even if you tried. I could take you," she said, grinning slightly, though Dell's expression didn't brighten. "I just wanted to, well," she said, trailing off.

"Wanted to what?" Dell asked.

"I wanted to find out about how you could survive being killed like that. I mean, she said you were blown up into actual pieces, after all, and somehow survived! Of course I'm gonna want to find out about that." She looked up at him, seeming excited, "I mean, if I could get my hands on that kind of technology, that'd be, like, the best day of my life. And disassembling it would be so interesting!" She went back to looking sheepish. "So I kinda thought that, well, maybe you'd talk about it a bit while you were fixing your PDA, since I sometimes do that sort of thing where I talk about other inventions I've made while fixing a different one. Or that, if you were really, really unlucky or careless, you could get hurt and I'd see it in action." Seeing the expression on Dell's face, she waved her hands defensively. "I didn't plan on sabotaging you or anything like that, I just thought that, since you probably weren't familiar with some of the stuff down here, and considering the protections I've set up around my prototypes, it could happen, so I thought there was a good chance of you getting hurt, but well, in retrospect, that was selfish of me, so I'm well, I'm sorry." She bowed.

Dell looked at her, and saw her still bowing. After a moment, he asked, "So you really don't find the fact that I kill people for a living scary?"

Nitori straightened up from her bow. "Well, not really scary, per se. It's certainly not what I would expect an engineer to be doing. But to be honest, it hasn't been that long since youkai and humans were killing each other all the time. I wasn't super involved with it then, but my parents told me a lot about it. I'd imagine in your case it's also about survival, to some extent. But also," she said, "I know that some of the best ideas for inventions I've ever had came from times when I was under intense pressure, and I can't imagine a more stressful situation than a battlefield."

Dell let out a mirthless laugh. "That obvious, huh?" He looked down. "Y'know, I was a combat engineer in the war. And I came up with the most fantastic ideas of my life there, my sentry, dispenser, even my teleporter technology were all developed due to situations I ended up in while fighting. So when the war ended, I couldn't really come up with anything. Too used to the rush I guess. So yeah, that's why I'm in this whole mercenary business." He sighed and shook his head. "I sometimes wish it wasn't the case, but it is." He faced towards Nitori again. "You were wondering how I could survive being blown up?" Nitori nodded. "It's due to respawn technology that I convinced the Medic to help me make. I," he paused. "I wanted to make it so that we could fight, get injured, even kill each other, keep that same tense life-or-death atmosphere, but it wouldn't result in any actual death. It's almost an atonement." Nitori didn't really know what to say, so she stayed silent. After a while, Dell looked over at her, and let out a sigh. "You don't really care about that though, do you? You just want to know how it works."

"Jeez, do you really have that low an opinion of me?" Nitori asked. "Of course I'm gonna care." She patted him on the back. "Though I will admit, I do still want to know how it works."

Dell chuckled. "Well, at least you're honest. But I can't tell you about it. It's not something that should be duplicated, not to mention the sheer amount of raw materials it required is pretty much impossible to obtain."

"Have you looked around this place?" Nitori said, throwing her arms wide. "I've got tons and tons of raw materials!"

Dell shook his head. "These aren't the kinds of raw materials I'm talking about."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Nitori said, annoyed.

"I'm not telling you any more," Dell said. "Let's just say you don't have the ones you need, and you wouldn't want to have them either."

"Oh come on, please?"

"Nope."

Nitori grumbled something about Dell being ungrateful but when Dell didn't react, she let out a long sigh. "Fine. Did you at least get your PDA fixed?" she said, pointing to the device in his hand.

"Ah, yes, I did, thanks for reminding me." Dell said. "Thanks for letting me use your equipment."

"Well, we did make a deal. So," she said, eyes glinting, "when do I get to take a look at your hand?"

Dell sighed. "That was the deal, wasn't it? Let me make sure that this is actually fixed first, alright? I'd hate to have to try and fix this with just one hand."

"Fair enough," Nitori said, nodding. "To be honest, I want to see how this works too."

"Here goes nothing," Dell said, pressing the switch to turn the PDA on. To his relief, the display lit up with the familiar selection options for the sentry, dispenser, and teleporter entrance and exit. After entering a special button combination, the screen displayed a holographic projection of teleporter signals, and their approximate locations compared to his own, though, since the area was unknown, all that could be seen was a few dots floating in space. Dell stared at the area and began to frown.

"Hold on, this can't be right," Dell said, frowning.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Nitori said.

"There's a tenth signature here. It's faint and it's not the same frequency as mine, but," he pointed at a dot that seemed to be fading in and out of existence randomly on the screen, "it's there."


	19. Chapter 19: The Medic's Intro to Eientei

Hi everyone. New chapter here, though it's a bit shorter than usual. I'm slowly getting through the writer's block, so hopefully things'll pick up again soon.

As always, thanks for reading!

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><p>Previously on The Nine RED Men Incident: The Medic Chapters<p>

The Medic, after landing in Gensokyou, found himself lost in a forest of bamboo. After finding that the forest somehow managed to warp around him so that he constantly approached the same spot, he was approached by a being claiming to be a forest spirit who would help him out of the forest for a small fee. However, upon hearing someone calling for a 'Tewi,' she ran off, and he ended up running into a rabbit youkai while chasing after her. As the crash had somehow broken her bones, he healed her with his medigun, which she was both impressed and confused by. She said that she worked for a doctor named Eirin, and would help lead him to her after finding Tewi, the rabbit youkai who had pretended to be a forest spirit, and ran off to find her after the Medic pointed her in the last direction he'd seen Tewi heading. After a little while, during which the Medic had experimented on some of the bamboo in the forest, she returned and began to lead him towards Eientei.

We now return you to The Nine RED Men Incident: The Medic Chapters.

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><p>After a short walk, during which the Medic talked with the rabbit-woman (whose name was Reisen, apparently) at length about what sort of medicine this Master Eiren practiced (mostly pharmaceuticals, though she was also skilled in traditional surgery), about why Reisen's bones broke so easily (apparently a side effect of a drug that had been tested on her), and about who this "Tewi" was (a trickster rabbit youkai who often set up traps and scams for wanderers), they arrived at the Eientei Clinic.<p>

"And here we are, Mr. Medic, the Eientei Clinic." It looked to the Medic more like an old-fashioned oriental-style mansion than any sort of medical clinic or center he'd ever been to. But upon entering, he was greeted with the familiar waiting room of hospitals everywhere, consisting of some long benches and magazine racks (filled with such titles as _The Bunbunmaru Times_, and _Kappaneering Monthly_), with the minor difference that the person manning the front desk seemed to also be a rabbit youkai instead of a human being. They had short brown hair and wore a pink dress similar to the one he'd seen Tewi wearing earlier, and there seemed to be a small cut out of one of her ears. She waved lazily.

"Hey, Reisen. Good job catching Tewi." She turned to look at the Medic. "Oh, who's this? A customer?"

"Thanks Mikasa," Reisen said with a small grin. "Actually, this is Mr. Medic, apparently. He's also a doctor, and wanted to talk with Master Eirin. Is she busy?"

"Lemme check." Mikasa flipped through a notebook on her desk. "I think she's doing the rounds right now, but she should be done pretty soon, I mean you know the inpatients we have," she said.

Reisen sighed. "Yeah. Yeah I do." She turned to the Medic. "Alright, could you please wait here until she's free?"

"Could I see ze inpatients? I vould _love_ to see vhat kind of diseases you have here," the Medic said, cheerily.

"Um, well, we really try to respect the patient's privacy…"

"I svear I vill not do anything to make them feel uncomfortable. And I am ze best on ze team about keeping secrets! I mean, I haven't told anyone about Scout's athlete's fo-vhooops! Heh, how embarrassing." Reisen looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "Oh, fine. I'll vait here zhen."

"Thank you."

Reisen walked down the hallway and turned a corner, vanishing from the Medic's sight. He went and sat down on a bench, taking a random magazine out of the magazine rack as he sat. It was called _The Faithful Sun_ and seemed to be about the large number of religions in Gensokyou and what each was up to. To the Medic, it was rather boring. He'd never been very interested in religion, and though the idea of a soul was somewhat interesting to him, he'd prefer to do some sort of experimentation to find it, rather than just believe what someone told him was true. He supposed the respawn machine was sort of his attempt to find out about souls, but there'd never been much conclusive evidence to be found with it. It was rather frustrating. In any case, he put down the magazine after a few minutes and decided to inspect his medigun instead. As he did so, he became aware of the fact that the rabbit at the front desk was staring at him. He looked up at her and said, "Yes?"

"Oh sorry, I was just wondering where you were from. You don't seem to be from Gensokyou."

"Vell no, I'm not. I'm from Germany, originally, zhough don't tell Soldier zat. He'd probably try to kill me. Zhough I doubt he vould be able to do much." He chuckled. "But now, it's my turn. Vhat kind of diseases do you usually get here? I vonder how zey evolved differently here then vhere I'm from," he said, excited.

"Diseases, huh? Well, to be honest, we don't get many here. It's mostly broken bones, sprains, lacerations, y'know the usual. Every now and then there'll be some people with a cold or flu, but usually we can cure those pretty quick." The Medic tsked in irritation. The youkai's eyes brightened. "Oh! But I also remember hearing that there was some sort of spider youkai in the underground who could control diseases. If you get the chance, you could talk to her."

"Control zem? Ooh zat's exciting. I vonder if I could extract zat power…"

Mikasa laughed. "Well, you're welcome to try, but considering what happened when Miss Eirin tried it, be sure to bring cures to pretty much every disease imaginable."

The Medic grimaced. "Ahhh…Yes, I suppose zat vould be an appropriate response. But ve could do so much vith zat power…" He sighed. "Perhaps later zhen."

"My turn again," said Mikasa, smiling. "What's it like outside the border? I've never been."

"Eh? Ze border? Is zat vhat Merasmus broke zhrough?" the Medic murmured to himself. "Hmm, vell it's different. Very different. I mean, to be fair, I've been somevhat…out of touch vith much of ze goings on outside of vork recently, so I really can't say much beyond my vork. So, let's see, vhat's a fast way to explain zis…" He trailed off, thinking. "Vell, my job used to be healing some ungrateful svinehunds as ve fought ze BLU team, but zhen Grey Mann showed up and ve kind of lost our employers, so ve had to fight his robots, zhough sometimes ve'd have to fight BLU team as vell. So basically, ze vorld outside consists of violence. And Australia, but zhey have zheir wrestling and moustaches and zings to worry about."

"Really? Hmm, Ms. Sanae said something completely different."

"Vait, zis 'Sanae' you speak of, she is also from ze outside?"

"Oh yes. She came here, oh, seven years ago now? She's come over here a few times when she got a cold or something. She said that the outside world's pretty peaceful. That most of the violence she saw was on television."

"Television? I vasn't aware zat vas so videspread…I've only seen it used for viewing security footage. But zhen again, I have been relatively isolated for quite a vhile." He looked off thoughtfully. "Perhapz ze vorld progressed vhile I vasn't paying attention."

"Hmm, I guess I'll keep that in mind then."

"So now it's my turn again, correct?" Mikasa nodded. "Alright zhen. Vhat is zis 'Eirin' like?"

"Miss Eirin? Hmm," Mikase said, hand on her chin. "Well I guess a good way to describe her would be that she's pretty intense. When she starts doing experiments, which is most of the time, nothing will distract her until she's finished, one way or another. She's super smart, too. Which is great for the experiments and making cures and all that, but she's kinda…distant, a lot of the time. She doesn't really speak to many people, aside from giving orders or prescriptions. She always gives you this analytical gaze and, to be honest, it can be kind of scary, like she only sees you as a test subject."

"Is that how you see me then, Mikasa?" came a voice from behind her, causing the rabbit youkai's ears to stand on end and a shiver work its way up her body. The Medic glanced up from the notes he'd been taking to see a tall woman in a strange red and blue dress, long white hair tied into a braid, with a few strands framing her face.

"Mi-mi-mi-mistress Eirin! I was just, um, just saying how some other people might see you, not me!"

"Mmmhmm," the woman, who the Medic assumed must be Eirin, glared at Mikasa, her eyes narrowed. Then she let out a sigh. "Well, I suppose you're right. That was a relatively accurate description." She raised her eyes to the Medic's face. "You are the Medic Reisen informed me of, then," her expression one of vague interest.

"Indeed. And you must be ze 'Mistress Eirin,' she informed me of," the Medic said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. "Oh, zis is so exciting!"

Eirin raised an eyebrow quizzically. "Is it?"

"Vell, it is for me at least. I've alvays vondered vhat sort of diseases can spring up in an isolated environment such as zis one! Just zink of all the possible uses of zhem!"

"Hmm," Eirin said, tilting her head to the side. "I suppose that was exciting, the first time." She straightened up and nodded. "For my part, I'm rather interested in that there," she said, pointing towards the medigun. "If what Reisen told me is true, that's quite a powerful piece of technology."

"Yes, vell, I'm quite proud of it myself. Took quite a bit of ingenuity. And luck. Am I right in zinking zhat you are offering an exchange of information?" he said.

"Yes, that's right," she said, nodding.

"I see." The Medic frowned. "Is zhere anything else you vould like to know instead? Zhis machine is rather special. And, to be honest, I'm not sure if I could replicate it in zis place. And if you're, vell, not very nice people, giving you zis technology vould be rather foolish of me, vouldn't it?"

"Fair enough. But I'm afraid you probably don't have any other information I would like to know. And while I could just take it from you," she said, pointing to the front doors, which were now flanked by two rather well-armed looking rabbits, "I would prefer letting you explain it to me than having to spend time taking it apart."

The Medic, who had turned to look at the rabbits, scowled. "Are you threatening me zhen? Zhat vould be a bad idea. I am, after all, a combat medic. I am no stranger to violence." He got a grip on his ubersaw.

"I see." Eirin said, a touch of sadness mixed with desperation in her voice. "Then I guess we'll have to take it by force," she drew out her bow and notched an arrow.

There air was tense, and the Medic knew that if they charged him, there wasn't going to be much he could do to stop them. He wasn't foolish enough to believe that he could take on three people at once.

"W-wait," Mikasa, who had been trembling silently behind the desk, said. "You're both-you're both being stupid."

Eirin and the Medic both turned their gazes to her. "Oh really," Eirin said, icily. "How so?"

"Mi-mi-mi-mi-mistress Eirin's not-not-not a b-bad person. S-she j-just w-wants to heal p-people, especially-"

"Mikasa," Eirin said, in a dangerous tone of voice. "Stop talking now."

Mikasa took one look at Eirin's glowering face and shut up, ducking below the table.

"Now where were we," Eirin said, turning back towards the Medic.

"Vhat vas zat about, zhen?" the Medic asked, still holding his ubersaw out cautiously. "Who is zis person you vish to heal?"

Eirin grimaced. "There is no one person in particular I want to heal. That was just Mikasa here," she nodded towards the desk, "making things up."

"Is zhat right? I see," the Medic said. He sighed. "Vell zhen, I believe ve vere about to fight, yes?"

"I believe so," Eirin said, but before she could re-aim her bow, a rabbit youkai with surgical gloves and a facemask on ran into the room.

"Mistress Eirin, mistress Eirin," she yelled, pulling her facemask down so she could be heard clearly.

"I'm rather busy Nao, can it wait?"

"It's started again," the youkai apparently named Nao said, shaking her head.

Eirin immediately dropped her bow to her side, turning towards Nao. "Already?" she said, sounding worried. Nao nodded. "Damn. They're happening faster now." Eirin bit her thumb, thinking.

"Vhat is happening faster?" the Medic asked, confused.

Eirin glared at him, then looked down. "Damn. I guess I have no choice." She looked at the Medic, and reached out her hand. "Come with me." The Medic opened his mouth to refuse, but before he could, she said, "Please. I," she shook her head, "no, they need your help."

The Medic frowned, suspecting a trap, but she looked like she was being honest. And she already had the upper hand, so there was no reason for her to lie and create a false reason to catch him off-guard. After a moment's consideration, he nodded. "Alright. Take me to zhem, zhen."

"This way," Eirin said, and began rushing down the corridors, while the Medic ran after her.


	20. Chapter 20: The Sniper's Intro to Voile

Hi everybody, sorry I didn't post this yesterday, but I was on airplanes for a lot of the day. Unfortunately I've almost hit my buffer, so if some of the next chapters might be in a different order than you're used to, but hopefully it's still enjoyable. Hope you enjoy!

P.S. Shakespearicles is an actual character in the TF2 universe, as mentioned in the WAR! Update, just in case you were wondering.

* * *

><p>Following Sakuya's lead, he entered the large double doors to find himself in a seemingly endless room of towering bookshelves. No matter which direction he looked, he saw bookshelves traveling off into the horizon. There was even a second floor, which had just as many bookshelves as the ground floor. "Welcome," Sakuya said, "to the Voile library."<p>

"Calling this a 'library' is a bit like calling the collected works of Shakespearicles 'a somewhat heavy book'," the Sniper said, still in awe.

"Shakespearicles?" Sakuya said, confused.

"How could you not have heard of Shakespearicles? The Battle-Hardened Bard?" The Sniper shook his head. "He's only the most famous poet/playwright/brawler in existence! He wrote _As You Like Hit_, _All's Well That Ends Well Done_, _Antony and Cleopatra Versus Julius Caesar_, and, what is widely considered his best work, _The Taming of the Twenty-Foot, Fire-Breathing Shrew_. He shaped modern literature as we know it! How could you not know about him?"

Sakuya was silent for a moment, taken aback. Marisa, looking at Sakuya's expression of befuddlement, began to laugh. "Oh man, I've never seen you so off-put before Sakuya. It really suits you." The next instant, Marisa was nursing her forehead, and Sakuya was back to looking calm and collected, putting a knife away. "Aaaagh, no fair Sakuya. Even if you only hit me with the handle, that hurts, ya know!"

"I did nothing of the sort," Sakuya said, looking away. "Now let's continue. Right this way," she said, walking between two of the many, many bookcases.

The Sniper walked after her, Marisa running up behind. "Hey, would you happen to have a copy of one of those books?"

"Hmm? Oh you mean one of Shakespearicles'," the Sniper said, realization dawning.

"Yeah, they sounded fun."

"Well, I always carry a copy of _Richard the Eagle-Eyed_ on me, since it taught me my sniping techniques," he said, reaching for his shirt pocket and taking out a small paperback book. He held it out to her, but before she could grab it, he pulled it back out of her reach. "BUT, I'm only letting you borrow it. And not your kind of borrowing, my kind of borrowing. So you _will_ give this back to me when we're done with this truth-testing or whatever. Not a second later!" He reached out his free hand. "Do we have a deal?"

"What, don't trust me?" Marisa said, attempting to look innocent.

"No," the Sniper said bluntly.

"Awww, you're no fun," she said. She took the Sniper's hand and shook it. "But I guess we've got a deal."

"Great," the Sniper said. "I'll hold you to that." He held the book out to her and she took it.

"I would appreciate it," Sakuya said, appearing behind them, "If you followed me as quickly as you could." She held up a knife and smiled. "It is far too easy to get lost in here, as you might expect."

"R-right," the Sniper said.

"My fault, Sakuya," Marisa said, "I was just borrowing something from him."

"Then you have my sympathies," Sakuya said, nodding at the Sniper. "Now if you would be so kind as to follow me, please."

"Yeah, sorry." The Sniper began walking after her, while Marisa followed behind him. They walked mostly in silence, though every now and then Marisa, the least used to being silent, would point out something to the Sniper, like spaces in the bookshelves where tomes she'd borrowed had been, or asking questions about Shakespearicles or the outside world in general. The Sniper answered as best he could, but still remained focused on following Sakuya, and trying to work out a plan in case things went south and this "lie detector" didn't believe him for some reason. Unfortunately, the only plan he could come up with was perhaps to throw himself on their mercy, so hopefully the lie detector was trustworthy. Just in case, he kept track of the path they were taking through the bookshelves. He doubted he'd be able to get far before Sakuya caught up to him, but if she was somehow incapacitated, it'd be nice to know which way to flee. Eventually, after walking between about twenty bookshelves, they arrived at an open circular space, a round wooden table in the center. There, they saw a rather frail-looking woman resting on a bench. She had long, purple hair and seemed to be dressed in a long, pajama-looking robe with what looked like a pajama cap on her head. Above her, muttering something, was another woman with long red hair, through which two small wings poked out, dressed in a black dress with white sleeves. The most shocking thing about her was that she had two large wings coming out of her back and was hovering. Sniper sighed internally. He could feel his skepticism and rationality straining to the breaking point. When the resting lady noticed the people approaching, she waved the hovering one off and sat up.

"May I introduce," Sakuya said, turning to face the Sniper, "Lady Patchouli," the woman in pajamas waved a hand, "and her servant, Koakuma," the hovering woman nodded, looking worried.

"Pleased to meet you," the Sniper said, tipping his hat.

"Mmm," Patchouli said, nodding.

"Nice to meet you," Koakuma said, bowing.

"I see Marisa's still here," Patchouli said, frowning.

The witch smiled and waved. "Ha, you can't get rid of me that easily, Patchouli! Besides, this seems way more interesting than whatever else I'd be doing." She slapped the Sniper on the back, causing his glasses to slip down his nose while he grimaced in pain. "It's not every day you meet a real, live, outsider, after all!"

Patchouli raised an eyebrow. "Outsider, eh? No, I suppose it isn't." She sighed. "I guess I can't really stop you from loitering around here, but don't interfere with the truth magic, alright?"

"Wait, magic?" the Sniper asked. "You're going to use magic as a lie detector?"

"Yes, I am," Patchouli said. "Is there a problem?"

"Well, I," the Sniper began, before looking off to the side. "It's not going to turn my head into a giant bomb and make me explode is it? Or steal my eye and make it into a giant monster or anything, right?" Patchouli, Koakuma, Marisa, and Sakuya all looked at him with expressions of curiosity and incredulity. "It's a long story," he said, scratching the back of his head. "But the gist of it is that the team and magic don't have the best relationship."

After a short silence, Patchouli finally replied, "No. No it won't do anything like that." She gestured at a chalk outline of a circle. "All it will do is read your emotional and physical state to check for signs that you're lying. Nothing will explode, or turn into a monster, or harm any of us in any way."

"Promise?"

"Yes, I promise," Patchouli said, nodding. "To be honest," she said, suppressing a cough, "the type of magic you're describing is very rare. Transmogrification spells of that type are very few and far between, especially ones that powerful. I'd say your experience with magic is more of an outlier than the norm."

"I'd hope so," the Sniper said. He shuddered. "I'd hate for spells like that to be commonplace."

"Man, I want to learn some spells like that," Marisa said, seemingly in awe.

Sakuya and Patchouli shuddered. "I think you're powerful enough as it is," Sakuya said. "If you could turn people into bombs or eyes into monsters too, I'd be worried about Gensokyou's safety." Patchouli nodded.

"Spoilsports," Marisa said, sullenly.

"In any case," Patchouli said, gesturing towards the chalk circle, "I need to finish setting up the spell. It'll probably take about fifteen minutes," she said, turning to Sakuya.

"Very well, Lady Patchouli," Sakuya said, bowing. "We shall wait here then," she said, turning to the Sniper.

He sighed and nodded. "Not like I have a choice." He sat down in a chair next to the round table and began to clean his sunglasses, which still had a bit of dirt on them from his crash-landing. Sakuya smiled and leaned against a bookshelf, though she did seem to flicker at times. Marisa, once becoming aware that no one was in much of a talking mood, began reading the book the Sniper had lent her. Koakuma and Patchouli continued setting up the magic circle, which seemed to mostly require drawing intricate symbols and lines with chalk, but every now and then Patchouli would say an incantation and certain sections of the circle would glow. Once, as she performed an incantation, a bit of chalk dust got in her lungs and sent her into a severe coughing fit. The Sniper half-stood up from his chair, but Sakuya was instantly by Pathcouli's side with a glass of water, as Koakuma stood next to her and gently patted her back. Marisa glanced up from her book with a concerned look, but upon seeing Sakuya and Koakuma already helping, let out a relieved sigh and continued to read her book. The Sniper briefly considered making a run for it while everyone was distracted, but it was too large a gamble. And besides, he wanted his book back. So he sat back down and waited for Patchouli's coughs to subside. Eventually, she stopped coughing and took a long drink from the glass Sakuya had offered her. "Thank you," she said, nodding to Sakuya, who curtsied, and to Koakuma, who smiled, the wings on her head flapping slightly.

"If you need to rest, Lady Patchouli, I could always resort to more traditional interrogation techniques," Sakuya said, holding a knife. The Sniper gave her a sharp look, then smiled and looked away.

Patchouli rolled her eyes. "I believe he's trying to say that if you wanted to do that you wouldn't have bothered asking me for help in the first place." The Sniper let out a satisfied grunt. "Besides, you know I have those attacks every now and then. It is not a big issue. And if I let a few coughs get in the way of performing spells, I'd hardly be able to call myself a magician, now would I?"

Sakuya frowned. "As you wish then. I simply do not wish your attacks to get worse due to this."

Patchouli sighed. "I can appreciate that, but I'm not so frail that everyone needs to worry about me every time I have an asthma attack." She turned back to the magic circle, studying it for any problems that might have been caused by her coughing fit. Frowning, she redrew a few lines that had been slightly smudged, and then got back to her incantation. Sakuya took the empty glass from Patchouli and, after a flicker in which the Sniper assumed she put the glass away, leaned against her bookshelf again.

After a few minutes had passed, Marisa, who had been clutching the book tightly, let out a loud scream of excitement, causing Sakuya to jump and hold out a knife, the Sniper to reach for his rifle, Koakuma to shoot up into the air and hover a good fifteen feet above everyone, and Patchouli to mess up the line she was drawing. "That was awesome," Marisa said. She turned to the Sniper, who scooted back his chair a bit, afraid of being caught between Patchouli or Sakuya, who both looked livid, and Marisa. "All those explosions! And this is only the first scene, isn't it?"

"Ah, so you finally reached that part then? Yeah, I did tell you he shaped modern literature. But did you notice the shot he made to make them?" the Sniper said, starting to get excited.

"I know! Threading right between that crowd and hitting that tiny bit of flint! That's crazy!"

"Isn't it? That man was a pioneer of modern sniping! He's my idol. I hope that one day, I can make a shot as good as that."

"That'd be awesome! Hey, Patch-" she began to say before Sakuya's hand clamped over her mouth.

"Need I remind you, Marisa," Patchouli was saying, a vein in her forehead throbbing, "that this is a library? Do you know what the main rule of a library is?"

"Mmmph," Marisa said, struggling to get out of Sakuya's grip.

"Exactly. You must be quiet in a library." She turned towards the Sniper. "The same goes for you," she said icily.

"Y-yes, ma'am," the Sniper said, as quietly as he could while still being heard.

"Great. Glad we all understand each other then," she said, waving a hand at Sakuya, who let go of Marisa. "Now I just need to fill in this one last line and it'll be ready," she said, over the sound of Marisa grumbling. She filled in the chalk line and the circle began to glow, creating an intricate web of colors and making the floor look like a stained glass window. "That should do it. Anyone in this circle will be monitored for signs of lying."

"Right," Sakuya said. "In you go then, sir."

The Sniper eyed the glowing circle warily. He didn't trust magic, especially since all his other experiences with it had ended in some sort of pain. But he wasn't sure there was another way out. Still, if he was going to be killed, he'd rather at least try to fight it. "Marisa," he said, softly. She perked up her ears. "Can I trust that they aren't lying? That this isn't some sort of trap?"

She tilted her head in thought. "While I wouldn't put it past them," she said, to which Sakuya narrowed her eyes and Patchouli let out a soft sigh, "I don't think they're lying about it now. And given what I can see of the circle," she said, leaning over the table to stare at the circle, "it doesn't seem like there's any symbols for traps or injury. I'd guess it does mostly what she says it does."

The Sniper supposed that was the closest he was going to get to an unbiased assurance of safety. "Right then," he said, walking up to just outside the circle. "I really hope you're right." He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped into the circle.


End file.
